PART II
CONSCIOUS GUIDANCE AND CONTROL
EDUCATION
“It is because the body is a machine that education is possible. Education is the formation of habits, a superinducing of an artificial organisation upon the natural organisation of the body; so that acts, which at first require a conscious effort, eventually become unconscious and mechanical.”—HUXLEY.
RE-EDUCATION
“It is because the body is a machine that (RE)education is possible. (RE)education is the formation of (NEW AND CORRECT) habits, a (RE-INSTATING OF THE CORRECT) artificial organisation upon the natural organisation of the body; so that acts, which at first require conscious effort, eventually become unconscious and mechanical.”
INTRODUCTION TO PART II
In the first part of this volume I have endeavoured to explain the general principle which underlies my work. I will now present my proposition from a slightly different angle, as it were, to ensure a clearer view of it, that is, I shall deal with it in the light of its practical application to the acts of everyday life.
I trust I may do something to convince thinking men and women that conscious control is essential to man’s satisfactory progress in civilisation, and that the properly directed use of such control will enable the individual to stand, sit, walk, breathe, digest, and in fact live with the least possible expenditure of vital energy. This will ensure the highest standard of resistance to disease. When this desirable stage of our evolution is reached the cry of physical deterioration may no longer be heard.
I will write out as concisely, as definitely, and as boldly as possible, my claims and my main argument. In a second part I have added some more discursive notes and comments, which I trust will meet the many requests I have received for further light on certain points in my former book.
With the records of my casebooks for over twenty years before me I feel it right to set down my convictions in terms that do not admit of any doubt or uncertainty. My conclusions upon the urgent question of physical decadence have not been formulated in haste. They are deductions from a long series of striking results and observed facts, and, frankly, I consider them so important that I cannot hesitate to deliver my message in a tone which may appear to some to savour of over-confidence. So be it!
I SYNOPSIS OF CLAIM
1. My first claim is that psycho-physical guidance by conscious control, when applied as a universal principle to “living,” constitutes an unfailing preventive for diseases mental or physical, malformations, and loss of general efficiency. It is commonly considered that these conditions are brought about by such evils of civilisation as the limitation of energy, and by that loss of so-called “natural conditions” which civilisation entails.
It is my earnest belief that the intelligent recognition of the principles essential to guidance by conscious control are essential to the full mental and physical development of the human race. Due consideration will convince even the sceptical that if mankind is to evolve to the higher stages of mental and physical perfection, he must be guided by these principles. They alone will bring men and women of to-day to the highest state of well-being, enabling them to grapple effectively with the problems of the day in the world of thought and action, gradually widening the dividing line which separates civilised mankind from the animal kingdom.
There is no sphere of human activity, of human feeling or philosophy where the adoption of the principles of conscious guidance and control would not bring invaluable benefits.
At present man is held in bondage by many subconscious instincts which enslave the animal kingdom, the savage, and the semi-savage. Let me illustrate this. Animals and savages become immediately unbalanced when they experience the unusual, as for instance, when they see an express train dash along for the first time. Such a new experience would cause the bravest animal to become overwhelmed with that degree of fear which momentarily suspends his normal guidance by instinct. So also with the savage, who would be equally unbalanced by an experience of this kind. In most spheres of normal life, he, like the animal, depends on instinctive guiding principles which act with perfect balance under accustomed circumstances. In the face of the unusual, however, he is unable to meet suddenly the requirements of a new environment. To meet these he needs reasoned, conscious guidance which is the outcome of the habit of conscious control, and marks the dividing line between the animal kingdom, where instinct is the guide, and the human kingdom where its members are in communication with reason.
The mental and physical limitations and imperfections of men and women of the present day make it impossible for them to meet satisfactorily the great majority of the requirements of their present environment, and render them quite incapable of making the best of their capabilities in any new environment. These instinctive guiding principles, not even perfectly balanced as in the case of the savage and the animal, are miserably insufficient to meet the conditions of the modern world with its ever changing environment. Yet it is upon these instincts that men and women rely, to the detriment of their mental and physical attainments.
2. My next claim is that all such diseases as those referred to above (e.g., cancer, appendicitis, bronchitis, tuberculosis, etc.) are too often permitted to remain uneradicated and frequently undetected, and so to develop in consequence of the failure to recognise that the real cause of the development of such diseases is to be found in the erroneous preconceived ideas of the persons immediately concerned, ideas which affect the organism in the manner described in Part I of this book.
The only experience which the average man or woman has in the use of the different parts of the human organism is through his or her subconsciousness. The result is a subconscious direction which in the imperfectly co-ordinated person is based on bad experiences and on the erroneous preconceived ideas before mentioned. Small wonder, then, that such direction is faulty and leads to the development of serious defects and imperfections. With this erroneous direction even the attempt to carry out a simple action in accordance with subconscious habit is fraught with danger, for it invariably affects in a detrimental manner other parts of the subject’s organism which have nothing to do with the particular act or acts attempted. For instance, in the subconsciously controlled person the attempt to lengthen the neck is invariably preceded by a movement of the eyes in an upward or downward direction. Wrong use of the eyes in this or some similar manner too frequently is the forerunner of what eventually develops into an established habit, often causing an unnecessary and undue strain of the eyes which seriously impairs their efficiency, and which in the ordinary way of life leads to the specific treatment of these organs. It is obvious, however, that what is needed in such a case is the eradication of the erroneous preconceived idea and harmful habits, thereby removing gradually the undue and unnecessary strain upon the organs of sight. This will enable them to regain their lost efficiency and it is almost certain that specific treatment of any kind on orthodox lines will be unnecessary. In consequence of faulty guidance misdirected energies are not confined to one part of the organism. They affect the hands, arms, shoulders, legs, thorax, hips, knees, ankles and other parts of the organism, frequently causing strain and interference with the functioning of the different organs and finally seriously injuring them. To support this second claim I bring forward the following arguments:
(a) Till now little or no attention on a practical psycho-physical basis has been given to the vital and harmful influence of this faulty direction (of subconscious origin) and of the erroneous preconceived ideas and faulty posture associated therewith. Under such influences the subject can hardly fail to cultivate a wrong mental attitude towards life in general and towards the art of living (evolving satisfactorily), especially in regard to the primary causation of the defects which may be present or which may develop eventually, but also in regard to the essential laws connected with the eradication of these defects.
(b) Owing to the lack of distinction between reasoned (conscious) and unreasoned (subconscious or partly-conscious) actions, the subject suffers from various forms of mental and physical delusions, notably with regard to the physical acts he performs. Incidentally it should be pointed out that if this is true of the ordinary acts of everyday life how much more so of those physical acts which may be necessary to meet the demands of some new environment! As a striking instance of delusion in physical acts let us take the case of a man _who believes himself to be merely overcoming what he regards as essential inertia, when he is really fighting the resistance of undue antagonistic muscular action exerted by himself_, a resistance of which he is not consciously aware. In all such cases there is a constant conflict between two great forces, the one (subconscious) destined to exercise supreme directive powers during the early stages of human evolution, the other (conscious) to supersede this limited direction and finally to prove the reliable guide through the higher and highest stages of the great evolutionary scheme which leads to the full enjoyment of his potentialities. It must be remembered that the former became firmly established during centuries of subconscious direction, holding undisputed sway until the first glimmering of reasoned conscious guidance came in its crudest form to disturb its power, a power which it is destined one day to overthrow. In the present stage of our mental and physical progress the conflict continues with gradually increasing energy, and while the conflict is being waged the subject is influenced first in one direction by the dictates of his subconsciousness (called by some “instinct,” by others “intuition”), and then in another by his awakened conscious powers which he is gradually but slowly developing. Of the real significance of this conflict he has, unfortunately, no true realisation. At the same time he undoubtedly feels the force of these two influences as conflicting energies, but only in a dim, mysterious way. He is swayed first by one force and then by the other as happens when we hear a man or woman say, “Well, that seems the thing to do, but I feel that I shouldn’t do it.”
Very often he does what he feels instead of what seems to be the correct thing, and, moreover, the former is very frequently right. This is not surprising, seeing that the subconscious instinct in us is much more developed than the conscious faculty. But granting the subconscious its fullest degree of merit, we are forced to recognise its serious limitations in the mode of life (civilisation) with its ever changing environment which human progress demands. We must have a guiding principle without these limitations, to enable us to adapt ourselves much more quickly to the new environments which are inevitable in the progress of civilisation towards its legitimate goal.
We must have something more reasoned and definite than that which subconscious direction offers, and so we come to the need of reasoned guidance. Up to the present neither of these forms of direction really reaches the mind as a definite tangible idea consciously conceived. This is because of the fundamental principles upon which subconscious direction has been built up, and in consequence of the undeveloped condition of conscious guidance. Furthermore, the subject has not yet made any serious attempt to analyse these two forces, of whose particular workings he is but dimly aware. The fundamental principle which we call evolution demands that every human being shall be enabled to make this analysis, so that he may differentiate between the impulses springing from his subconsciousness (instinct-inhibition) and the conceptions created in his reasoning conscious mind.
The subject will thus cultivate the habit of distinguishing between reasoned and unreasoned actions and this will at once tend to the prevention of mental and physical delusions in all directions, notably in regard to his physical acts in old or new environments.
(c) Whilst these delusions remain, the subject will continue to perform wrong or detrimental actions, for as long as his settled mental attitude towards such actions remains unchanged, he will believe that he is performing them in a correct manner. It is owing to this involuntary, and on his part unrecognised, misapprehension, that many malformations and inefficiencies become established, which sooner or later may lead to definite disease. The popular misconception of the subject’s responsibility in the matter leads him to be commonly pitied as for unavoidable defects, whereas it is of the first importance that he should realise the responsibility is his and his alone. He must be made aware that such defects arise from his own fault, and are the outcome of his ignorance or wilful neglect.
Once this new mental attitude is firmly established there is hope for the afflicted person and he will have the satisfaction of knowing that he is, as it were, working out his own salvation on common-sense practical lines, devoid of pernicious sympathy, face to face with real facts, and stimulated by a principle which cannot fail to secure the very best efforts in the right direction of which any ordinary person is capable.
(d) It is essential in the necessary re-education of the subject through conscious guidance and control that in every case the “means whereby” rather than the “end,” should be held in mind. As long as the “end” is held in mind instead of the “means,” the muscular act, or series of acts, will always be performed in accordance with the mode established by old habits. When each stage of the series essential to the “means whereby” is correctly apprehended by the conscious mind of the subject, the old habits can be broken up, and every muscular action can be consciously directed until the new and correct guiding sensations have established the new proper habits which in their turn become subconscious, but on a more highly evolved plane.
In effect these new habits ensure conditions which give new life to, and maintain in a high state of efficiency, every organ of the body, the automatic functions being reacted upon by the consciously controlled energies. By my system of obtaining the position of “_mechanical advantage_,”[14] a perfect system of natural internal massage is rendered possible, such as never before has been attained by orthodox methods, a system which is extraordinarily beneficial in breaking up toxic accumulation; thus avoiding evils which arise from auto-intoxication.
The position of mechanical advantage, which may or may not be a normal position, is the position which gives the teacher the opportunity to bring about quickly with his own hands a co-ordinated condition in the subject. Such co-ordination gives to the pupil an experience of the proper use of a part or parts, in the imperfect use of which may be found the primary cause of the defects present. It is by the repetition of such experiences of the proper use of his organism that the pupil is enabled to reproduce the sensation and to employ the same guiding principles in everyday life. The placing of the pupil in what would ordinarily be considered an abnormal position (of mechanical advantage) affords the teacher an opportunity to establish the mental and physical guiding principles which enable the pupil after a short time to repeat the co-ordination with the same perfection in a normal position.
I maintain in this connexion, that any case of incipient appendicitis may be treated successfully by these methods. Further, when this position of mechanical advantage has been attained through the employment of the first principles of conscious guidance and control, a rigid thorax may regain mobility, no matter what the age of the subject, and full thoracic expansion and contraction may be acquired and, with the minimum of effort, maintained. During the practical process by which this thoracic elasticity and maximum intra-thoracic capacity is gradually established, the body of the subject is at the same time re-adjusted and mental principles are inculcated which will enable him to maintain the improved conditions in posture and co-ordination which are being set up, and which will secure the normal and necessary abdominal pressure in the right direction, thus constituting a natural form of massage of the digestive organs which is maintained during the ordinary actions of everyday life.
3. I am able to re-adjust and to teach others to re-adjust the human machine with the hands; to mould the body, as it were, into its proper shape, and with an open-minded pupil it is possible to remove many defects in a few minutes, as, for example, to change entirely the production of a voice, its quality and power.
4. In prescribing the principles of conscious guidance and control, we are dealing not with an epidemic of physical or mental degeneracy, but with a stage in the progress of the human race from the subconscious and instinctive to the conscious and reasoned command of the whole human mechanism. In other words, we have reached a stage in the process of civilisation where demands are being made which we are unable to meet satisfactorily, and with the serious results which may be seen on every hand, results from which we can escape only by passing from those primitive modes of guidance which approximate too closely to those of the animal kingdom where the greater potentialities of the human being remain latent.
The suggested adoption of conscious guidance and control as a universal principle on the lines heretofore outlined will enable us to move slowly but with gradually increasing speed towards those higher psycho-physical spheres which will separate the animal and human kingdoms by a deep gulf, and mankind will then enjoy the blessings which will be the natural result of capacities fully developed.
II THE ARGUMENT
The marked tendency toward physical degeneracy among the men and women of all civilised races has been the constant theme of physiologists, therapeutists and other specialists; endless explanations have been put forward to account for it, and countless remedies suggested to counteract it. In this question, as in the details of medicine and surgery, the general inclination of the human mind is always towards a treatment of epidemic symptoms, towards vague generalisations in the diagnosis and treatment of individual symptoms, whether the word “individual” in this case refers to a specific sufferer or a correlated class of diseases, towards a regard of effects rather than of causes.
As a reaction against this long-accepted method of dealing with individual symptoms by differentiated treatment, there has arisen a great diversity of so-called “mind-healers,” whose _a priori_ methods and lack of any clearly conceived system have brought their efforts into disrepute. Such were the conditions which over twenty years ago I sought to understand, believing—as I still do—that the whole human race was at some great psycho-physical turning point in its history, and that if the true nature of this evolutionary stage could be understood, it might and should be possible to direct man’s physical and mental progression and so combat, and in time eliminate, a thousand evils which seem to have no counterpart in the world of the lower animals, save in very exceptional cases.
In embarking upon this enquiry I realised from the outset that I was dealing not with a world-wide epidemic but with a stage of progress, and that it was essential therefore that I should at once discard all theories which advocated, implicitly or explicitly, a return to similar conditions. Evolution knows no such return to extinction. The species must go forward to a triumphant perfection, or give place to a more dominant, more complete, self-controlled type.
Now if man as an animal, with an animal body differing little in anatomical structure from other families of the order of Primates, is yet differentiated physically by a susceptibility to disease and bodily degeneration, which, save in very exceptional cases, finds little or no parallel in the lower animals, we must determine the prime cause of such differentiation. The solution of the problem which is commonly put forward, and which has found support in the body calling themselves in England and in the United States “Eugenists,” I cannot accept as universal. This theory rests mainly on the contention that in the human polity the physical struggle for existence has ceased to have effect, that the unfit are permitted to produce offspring equally with the fit, and that for the natural selection imposed by circumstances which are fatal to the weak we must substitute an arbitrary selection in order to maintain the high efficiency of the natural type. Though I am in sympathy with many principles of Eugenics I reject this theory as a universal one. It is inconsistent with the great and inspiring ideal of the progress of the human race toward a mental and bodily perfection. If we believe in the idea of a Purpose running through life, unfolding itself to each successive generation and expressing itself in the terms of human experience; if, in other words, we believe in any scientific theory of development, in any large scheme of progress, it is impossible to accept a theory which assumes the lack of adaptability in man’s physical body to thrive in the conditions which have grown up around him, or to enter its true and natural kingdom of perfect soundness. If we postulate that a third of civilised humanity is unfit to continue the race, we can only conclude that man’s physical evolution has proved a failure, and that the race is doomed ultimately to extinction. And, in the last analysis, it is inconceivable that the prime instinct and desire for reproduction can be overruled at the dictates of any small body of men, or even that such a method, if possible, could be productive of any highly desirable results.
Wherefore I take my stand firmly on the ground that the body of civilised man is capable not only of continuing the struggle for existence but of rising to a higher potentiality. So, returning to the point of differentiation between man and the lower animals, I am now convinced that we must seek for the cause of this physical degeneration not in the pressure of new circumstances of life, but in the progress from one state of being to the next. I maintain that in order to discover the solution of this twofold problem of universal disease and its universal remedy, we must look to this enormous growth of reasoning power, and to the consciousness and realisation of the means whereby the desired effect can be obtained. For the animal and the lower races of mankind do not perform physical acts by any process of reason. They are the servants of that strange directing law which governs the flower in its curiously ingenious devices to ensure cross-fertilisation, no less than the higher mammalia in the rules of their gregarious societies, the law for which we have found no better term than Instinct. It is this “instinct” which guides all the nervous muscular mechanisms of the animal’s anatomical structure, and is traceable as the motive in all functional processes. But in the physical economy of mankind this instinct is actually at war with, and is ever being controlled and superseded by conscious, directive reason.
The number of man’s instinctive actions grows ever more limited, (1) as the result of a complete change of habit, and (2) more noticeably, as the outcome of a mental evolution which prompts him continually to seek a cause for every action, to analyse and endeavour to comprehend the secret springs of his being. Moreover civilisation, with its multitudinous problems of life and its perpetual interplay of personalities, demands even in the minutiæ of physical action a constant reasoning, a deliberate and comparatively rapid adaptation to surroundings such as instinct is quite unable to provide. Thus man’s whole body is a polity ruled by two governors whose dictates are not invariably consistent one with the other; and one governor is frequently disobeyed at the expense of the other. This fact, indeed, is obvious when it is thus considered, but we have to determine the possible outcome. There are three alternatives. The first, a return to the sole guidance of instinct, is unthinkable. The second, the continuance of this dual government, is the very condition which has led to the evils we seek to remedy. There remains the third, namely, that man’s physical evolution points to progress along the road of reasoned, conscious guidance and control. It was this last conclusion which over twenty years ago led me to investigate and to practise the means by which this conscious guidance and control could be obtained, so as to apply it to the eradication and prevention of human ills, and to the maintenance of the body in a high degree of physical perfection.
III THE PROCESSES OF CONSCIOUS GUIDANCE AND CONTROL
The formulation of the method of conscious guidance and control arises in practice from a close study of the imperfect uses of the mental and physical mechanisms of the human organism. Since, as has been shown, conscious guidance and control is necessary and is being practised to some extent, inefficiently, by every civilised man and woman, it is essential that its principles should be thoroughly understood. The method is based firstly on the understanding of the co-ordinated uses of the muscular mechanisms, and secondly, on the complete acceptance of the hypothesis that each and every movement can be consciously directed and controlled.
In re-educating the individual, therefore, the first effort must be directed to the education of the conscious mind. The words “re-educating” and “re-education” have a specific meaning. In the individual the normal processes of education in the use of the anatomical structure is conducted subconsciously, certain instincts commanding certain functions, whilst other functions are conducted deliberately. The effects of this haphazard process have either to be elaborated or broken down, according to the defects established by misuse of the mechanisms, and the first step in re-education is that of establishing in the pupil’s mind the connexion which exists between cause and effect in every function of the human body.
In the performance of any muscular action by conscious guidance and control there are four essential stages:
(1) The conception of the movement required;
(2) The inhibition of erroneous preconceived ideas which subconsciously suggest the manner in which the movement or series of movements should be performed;
(3) The new and conscious mental orders which will set in motion the muscular mechanism essential to the correct performance of the action;
(4) The movements (contractions and expansions) of the muscles which carry out the mental orders.
The process of re-education concerns itself with establishing these principles, and for the purpose of illustration we may take a typical example of a patient who has had no experience of them.
A well-built, muscular man in the prime of life, conducting during business hours a sedentary occupation and taking more or less violent exercise during his leisure, becomes a chronic sufferer from indigestion with all its concomitant troubles. He complains that the physical exercises of the gymnasium no longer do him any good, but appears to think that if he gave up his office work altogether, an economic impossibility for him, he might recover.
Suppose he is asked to stand upright and take a “deep breath.” It will be found that he immediately makes movements which tend to retard the proper action of the respiratory processes rather than to promote such action. For instance, it is almost certain that in the attempt to make the movement referred to he will stiffen the muscles of his neck, throw back the head, hollow the back, protrude the stomach, and take breath by audibly _sucking_ air into the lungs. The muscles over the entire surface of the bony thorax will be unduly tensed, tending to more or less harmful thoracic rigidity at the very moment when the maximum of mobility is needed. How could the result be otherwise? For, in telling the pupil to take a “deep breath,” the teacher starts out with the assumption that the pupil can do so. But why such an assumption? What guide in carrying out the order has the pupil except his own admittedly erroneous guidance? I say “admittedly” erroneous, for I contend that the pupil’s condition, together with the fact that he and the teacher deem it necessary to remedy it, is tantamount to this admission. So common, so almost universal is such a response as the above to these orders that the truth of the statement may be tested on any average individual. Now the mistakes of this response need not be dwelt upon here. They have proved in every case in my experience sufficient explanation for the trouble of the digestive organs. Examination of the subject will reveal the hollowing of the back with the accompanying protrusion of the abdominal wall, whilst the abdominal muscles will be deficient in the energy and tone necessary to the maintenance of efficiency in the digestive organs. Now in dealing with this case, many parts of the organism will require re-adjustment. The spine must be straightened and lengthened, the mean thoracic capacity permanently increased in order to give free play to the internal organs, and the firmly established habit of drawing breath by _sucking_ air into the lungs must be broken.
It is essential in this place to point out that no system of physical exercises will alter the present condition of the subject in respect of these faults, since all exercises will be conducted under a primary misconception with regard to the use of the muscles involved in the re-adjustment and co-ordination of the organism.
We may now follow the individual through the four stages in the inculcation of the principles of conscious control. In the first place it is necessary that he should have a clear understanding of the faults we seek to remedy. No tacit compliance on his part to a treatment, the processes of which he does not understand, will be of the slightest value. He must accept completely the principle in detail. In the second place he must be taught to realise his erroneous conceptions which result in erroneous movements, and this, whether the conceptions be conscious or subconscious. He must also be taught to inhibit, and, finally, to eradicate these preconceived ideas and the mental order or series of orders which follow from them. Only then can he give the correct guiding orders as next described.
In the third place, then, he must learn to give the correct mental orders to the mechanisms involved, and _there must be a clear differentiation in his mind between the giving of the order and the performance of the act ordered and carried out through the medium of the muscles_. The whole principles of volition and inhibition are implicit in the recognition of this differentiation. Thus, to return to the example under consideration, we will suppose that I have requested the pupil _to order_ the spine to lengthen and the neck to relax. If, instead of merely framing and holding this desire in his mind, he attempts the physical performance of these acts, he will invariably stiffen the muscles of his neck and shorten his spine, since these are the movements habitually associated _in his mind_ with lengthening his spine, and the muscles will contract in accordance with the old associations. In effect it will be seen that in this, as in all other cases, stress must be laid on the point that it is _the means_ and not the _end_ which must be considered. When the end is held in mind, instinct or long habit will always seek to attain the end by habitual methods. The action is performed below the level of consciousness in its various stages, and only rises to the level of consciousness when the end is being attained by the correct “means whereby.”
In the fourth place, when the correct guiding orders have been practised and given by the mind, a result attained by attention and the instruction of the teacher, the muscles involved will come into play in different combinations under the control of conscious guidance, and a reasoned act will take the place of the series of habitual, unconsidered movements which have resulted in the deformation of the body. And it must be kept clearly in mind that the whole of the old series of movements has been correlated and compacted into one indivisible and rigid sequence which has invariably followed the one mental order that started the train; such an order, for instance, as “Stand upright.”
Leaving this specific example, I come now to a consideration of the general principles involved. Firstly, as to the teaching method.
Every one who has had experience, personally or vicariously, of the many “methods” and “systems” of teaching breathing, speaking, singing, physical culture, golf, fencing, etc., must have noticed that whilst the failures of these “methods” are many, the successes are comparatively few.
The few successes are of course set down to exceptional natural aptitude, whilst the teacher has an explanation of those cases more flattering to himself and prefers not to consider too closely the average of his failures. The truth is that all these systems break down because the pupil, in the attempt to adopt them, is guided always by his subconscious direction and is forced to depend too much on what is called natural aptitude. When guidance by conscious control and reason supersedes guidance by instinct, we shall be able to develop our potentialities to the full.
My own analysis of the matter is that the teaching method is, as a rule, entirely wrong, and wrong because of a fundamental misconception and an entirely inaccurate analysis resulting in a false premise. The pupil’s defects are dealt with commonly through their effects and not their causes. It is not recognised that every defective action is the result of the erroneous preconception of the doer, whether consciously or subconsciously exercised, and the orders which directly or indirectly follow. Nor is it understood that a pupil under the influence of such erroneous preconceptions can make no real progress till he is made to realise that it is he himself who is actually bringing about the defective action. The teacher does not attach sufficient importance to the fact that the pupil is often under a complete misapprehension as to his own actions, being under the delusion that he is doing one thing when he is often doing the exact opposite.
No real progress in the overcoming of faults can be made until the pupil consciously ceases to will or to do those things which he has been willing and doing in the past, and which have led him to commit the faults that are to be eradicated. “Don’t do this, but this,” says the teacher, dealing with _effects_. In other words, it is assumed that the defective action on the part of the pupil can be put right by “doing something else.” The teacher accepts and preaches this doctrine without ever analysing the defect to its root cause in the human will, the motor of the whole mechanism. He forgets that in “doing something else” the pupil must use the same machinery which, _ex hypothesi_, is working imperfectly, and that he must be guided in his action by the same erroneous conceptions regarding right and wrong doing. Neither teacher nor pupil seems to remember that to know whether practice is _right_ or _wrong_ demands judgment. Judgment is the result of experience. Faulty or wrong experience means faulty or bad judgment, whereas correct experience means good judgment.
The very fact that the pupil was beset with defects and needed help proves that his _kinæsthetic_ experiences were incorrect and even harmful, and as his judgment on the kinæsthetic basis has been built upon such faulty experience, the judgment will prove most misleading and unsound.
Therefore we are forced to dispense, for the time being, with the sense of feeling as a guide in its old sphere of associations. We cannot deny that we are beset with defects, that even when the way is made clear for their eradication we cannot follow that way on our old mode of procedure, because our guides in the form of sensory appreciations (feeling-tones), general experience, and judgment are unworthy of our confidence, and will guide us in such a way that, even if we succeed in eradicating some specific defect, it will be found that in the process we have cultivated a number of others which are as bad or even worse than the original.
It seems also to me that practice so-called is so rarely directed by a reasoned analysis on a reasoned plan. Nor does the teacher analyse and instruct with accuracy. He demands from the pupil merely imitative not reasoned acts. This makes practice so often futile for the imperfectly co-ordinated person, and teaching both halting and inadequate.
With regard to this question of the imitative method I have frequently had to point out to vocal pupils that certain effects and capacities, which they hoped to acquire in a few lessons, were a result of a proper conscious knowledge on my part of the “means whereby” the voice is produced. To achieve these results they must study and master the same principles, but they could never reproduce them by a series of imitative acts divorced from knowledge of the processes involved and skill in using these processes. There is no royal road to anything worth having, and the imitative method of teaching seems to me pure charlatanry.
The position of the teacher and pupil is a very hopeless one as long as their standpoint is still on the subconscious plane, and the physical and mental conditions of our time, when considered in the light of the teaching methods adopted in the past, afford abundant proof of this.
My reader can rejoice that the foregoing is a faithful representation of our position to-day. He can rejoice because these tremendous forces demand that if he wishes to progress he must leave the subconscious plane of animal growth and development, and adopt the reasoned conscious plane of guidance and control by means of which mankind may rise to those high evolutionary planes for which his latent and undeveloped potentialities fit him.
I will now endeavour to outline the teaching method which should be adopted if we are to pass successfully from subconscious to conscious guidance and control, in the endeavour to remove defects and delusions and to develop and establish correct guiding centres and senses.
The conscious guidance and control advocated here is on a wide and general, and not on a specific basis. Conscious control applied in a specific way in unthinkable, except as a result of the principle primarily applied as a universal. For instance, the conscious controlling of the movements of a particular muscle or limb, as practised by athletes and others, is of little practical value in the science of living. The specific control of a finger, of the neck, or of the legs should primarily be the result of the conscious guidance and control of the mechanism of the torso, particularly of the antagonistic muscular actions which bring about those correct and greater co-ordinations intended to control the movements of the limbs, neck, respiratory mechanism and the general activity of the internal organs.
In order to describe the teaching method necessary in this connexion, I will indicate the procedure which should be adopted in the attempt to help a pupil in whom undue tension of the muscles of one side of the neck causes the head to be pulled down on that side. In the ordinary way, the pupil is told to relax and straighten the neck and he and his teacher devote themselves to this end. This attempt may be attended with more or less success, chiefly less. If they do succeed in removing the specific trouble it is almost certain that new defects will have been cultivated during the process. In any case the teacher’s order to relax and straighten the neck is incorrect and primarily the result of a wrong assumption. It started from a false premise which led to false deductions. The pupil and his teacher decided that something was wrong and that therefore something specific had to be done to put it right. The “end” was held in mind primarily and not the “means whereby.”
The correct point of view is: Something is wrong in the use of the psycho-physical mechanism of the person concerned. Is this imperfection or defect a direct or indirect result of this person’s own direction and action, or is it the result of some influence outside of himself and beyond his power to control? It can be proved conclusively that his imperfections or defects are due entirely to causes springing directly or indirectly from his own ideas and acts.
It is therefore obvious that the correct order of procedure for teacher and pupil is first for the pupil to learn to prevent himself from doing the wrong things which cause the imperfections or defects, and then, as a _secondary_ consideration in procedure, to learn the correct way to use the mental and physical mechanisms concerned.
If there is any undue muscular pull in any part of the neck, it is almost certain to be due to the defective co-ordination in the use of the muscles of the spine, back, and torso generally, the correction of which means the eradication of the real cause of the trouble.
This principle applies to the attempted eradication of all defects or imperfect uses of the mental and physical mechanisms in all the acts of daily life and in such games as cricket, football, billiards, baseball, golf, etc., and in the physical manipulation of the piano, violin, harp and all such instruments.
My reader must not fail to remember that mental conceptions are the stimuli to the ideo-motor centre which passes on the subconscious or conscious guiding orders to the mechanism. In dealing with human defects or imperfections we must consider the inherited subconscious conceptions associated with the mechanisms involved, and also the conceptions which are to be the forerunners of the ideo-motor guiding orders connected with the new and correct use of the different mechanisms.
In order to establish successfully the latter (correct conception), we must first inhibit the former (incorrect conception), and from the ideo-motor centre project the new and different directing orders which are to influence the complexes involved, gradually eradicating the tendency to employ the incorrect ones, and steadily building up those which are correct and reliable.
It will therefore be understood that if we eliminate the conception established and associated with our defects or imperfections, it means that we are really eliminating our inherited subconsciousness, and all the defective uses of the psycho-physical mechanism connected therewith.
In our attempts on these lines we are, at the outset, confronted with the difficulty of mental rigidity. The preconceptions and habits of thought with regard to the uses of the muscular mechanisms are the first if not the only stumbling-blocks to the teaching of conscious control. Many of these preconceptions are the legacy of instinct, others arise from habitual practices started by a faulty comprehension of the uses of the mechanism, others again by conscious or unconscious imitation of faults in others. In this last case it may be noted that although we are always deploring the degeneracy of civilised man the exemplars held up for the child’s conscious and unconscious imitation are nearly always faulty specimens. These preconceptions and habits of thought, therefore, must be broken down, and since the reactions of mind on body and body on mind are so intimate, it is often necessary to break down these preconceptions of mind by performing muscular acts for the subject vicariously; that is to say, the instructor must move the parts in question while the subject attends to the inhibition of all muscular movements. It would be impossible, however, to describe the method in full detail in this place, owing to the extraordinary variability of the cases presented, no two of which exhibit precisely the same defects. On broad lines it is evident that the misuses must be diagnosed by the instructor who may be called upon to use considerable ingenuity and patience in correcting the faults, and substituting the correct mental orders for the one general order which starts the old train of vicious habitual movements. The mental habit must be first attacked and this mental habit usually lies below the level of consciousness; but it may be reached by introspection and analysis, and by the performance of the habitual acts by other than the habitual methods, that is, by physical acts performed consciously as an effect of the conscious conception and the conscious direction of the mind.
Speaking generally, it will be found that the pupil is quite unable to analyse his own actions. Tell a young golfer that he has taken his eye off the ball or swayed his body, and he feels sure, in his heart, that you are mistaken. The imperfectly poised person has not a correct apprehension of what he is really doing. In this apparently simple matter of the carriage or poise of the body I find in quite nine-tenths of my cases a harmful rigidity[15] which is quite unconsciously assumed. When it is pointed out to them, and physically demonstrated, they almost invariably deny it indignantly. I ask a new pupil to put his shoulders back and his head forward, and he will consistently put both back or forward. I tell a new pupil he is shortening his spine, and in attempting to lengthen it he invariably shortens it still more. The action is one over which he has neither learnt nor practised any control whatever. He is simply deluded regarding his sensations and unable to direct his actions. I do not therefore in teaching him actually order him to lengthen his spine by performing any explicit action, but I cause him to rehearse the correct guiding orders, and after placing him in a position of mechanical advantage I am able by my manipulation to bring about, directly or indirectly as the case may be, the desired flexibility and extension.
The process is of course repeated until the pupil gains a new kinæsthetic sense of the new and correct use of the parts, which become properly co-ordinated, and the correct habit is established. He will then no longer find it easy to cause his physical machinery to work as it did before the fault was thus effectively eradicated.
I frequently have to treat cases of congenital or acquired crippling and distortion. I protest against the mental attitude which looks upon such ailments as incurable and beyond the control of the patient—the mental attitude of the person who says, “Poor fellow,” to the sufferer, and induces him to repeat and be dominated by this paralysing formula. As a matter of plain fact the condition is maintained by the pupil’s erroneous ideas concerning “cause” and “effect,” and the working of his own mechanism, and so, subconsciously but quite effectively, he is really causing and maintaining the trouble. My method is to make an examination and then to apply tests to discover the real cause or causes, namely, the erroneous preconceived ideas, and to find out what minimum of control is left, and therefrom to develop a healthy condition of the whole organism by a simple and practical procedure which step by step effects the desired physical and mental changes. Like the faith-healer, then, I lay much stress on the mental attitude of the patient; unlike him, instead of denying the existence of the evil I make the pupil search out with me its cause. I then explain to him that his own will (not mine or some higher will) is to effect the desired change, but that it must first be directed in a rational way to bring about a physical manifestation, and must be aided by a simple mechanical principle and a proper manipulation. In this way a reasoned and permanent confidence is built up in the pupil instead of a spurious hysterical one which is apt to fail as suddenly as it arose. I will not, for instance, allow my pupils to close their eyes during their work, in spite of a constant plea that they can “think better” or “concentrate” better with their eyes shut, for, as a rule, I find that this resolves itself into an attempt at self-hypnotism. I make them endeavour to exercise their conscious minds all the while. As I have already said, I maintain further and I am prepared to prove that the majority of physical defects have come about by the action of the patient’s own will operating under the influence of erroneous preconceived ideas and consequent delusions, exercised consciously or more often subconsciously, and that these conditions can be changed by that same will directed by a right conception implanted by the teacher.
In this connexion I am able to give particulars of an interesting case.
A well-known actor fell during rehearsal and injured his arm so severely that he was unable to raise it more than five or six inches from his side without intense pain. He consulted many medical men without relief, and had been disabled for six weeks when he was sent to see me.
I diagnosed the case as a subjective subconsciously willed disablement. Of course, the last thing I mean is that it was “affected” in the usual sense; all the patient’s interests and character made this impossible.
I asked him to lift his arm. “I can’t.” “But please try.” He did so and the cause of his trouble was immediately apparent to me. He was using the muscular mechanisms of the arm and neck in such a way as to place a severe strain on the injured muscle, such a strain indeed as would have been harmful to a normal arm and which caused him intense pain. For instance, he was exerting force sufficient to lift a sack of flour and he _looked_ as if he had been called upon for such an exertion! He was stiffening all the muscles which he should have relaxed, and was altogether acting as the subconsciously controlled person of to-day does habitually act when something unusual occurs. To put the matter in the terms of my thesis, he acted in accordance with a subconscious guiding influence which had long since lost the standard of accuracy of instinct possessed by his early ancestors, whilst nothing had been given to or cultivated by him in his civilised state to compensate for its loss. The “cure” was so simple as to appear ludicrous. I had diagnosed that the subconsciously stiffened muscles were the cause of the trouble. My efforts were devoted to obtaining the correct action of the arm with the minimum of tension. This was done by manipulation and by giving him guiding orders which brought about the correct use of the parts concerned. Within ten minutes he was able to lift his arm with very little pain and he resumed his professional work at once and without relapse. Note that the relaxing was not brought about by a preliminary order to relax, an action which entailed processes of which he had no true consciousness and over which therefore he had no control. Note also that this demonstration is much more effective for the treatment of similar later accidents and for general self-development and control, than any hypnotic “suggestion” that there was no pain.[16]
I do not deny, for it would be against the evidence, that the healers do contrive to remove pain; but apart from the danger of removing mere symptoms (that is, removing nature’s danger signals and leaving the danger untouched), their methods have the obvious limitation of being repugnant to many, and have fallen into some discredit amongst those who are by no means amongst the least capable, accomplished, and thoughtful human types.
Another very interesting case was that of a man who stuttered and came to me for help. All stutterers have their particular and peculiar little accompaniments to the main defect. His was a harmful habit of moving his arm up and down from the elbow as he attempted to speak. I asked him why he did this, and he replied that he _felt_ it assisted him in speaking. I explained and demonstrated to him that this was a delusion, that this movement of the limb was really a hindrance and not an assistance. He saw that a considerable amount of valuable mental and physical energy, which should have been conveyed to the mechanisms and organs of speech, was being diverted to a limb which might have been amputated without interfering in any way with those mental and mechanical processes upon which his powers of speech entirely depended. He became convinced on these points and intimated his willingness to endeavour to carry out my instructions. I assisted him to establish a working conscious control basis and improved his co-ordination generally.
Then I made the following request:
“I wish you to project orders to these newly developed co-ordinators. You will then be prevented from employing your arms as an aid in speaking, and in your general attempts at conscious guidance in private. In public I wish you to adopt the following mode of procedure:
“Whenever a person speaks to you, asking a question or in any way trying to open up a conversation, you must as a primary principle refuse to answer by mentally saying _No_. (This will hold in check the old subconscious orders—the bad habit of moving the arm. It constitutes the inhibition of the old errors before attempting to speak).
“Then give the new and correct orders to your general co-ordinations and command the ‘means whereby’ of the act of correct and controlled speaking.
“Make this a principle of life.”
Perhaps I should add here that I convinced this pupil by practical demonstrations that the energy directed to his arm was wasted and misdirected; that, if this energy were correctly directed to the proper co-ordinations concerned with the mechanism of breathing and speaking, the process would represent the difference between correct and incorrect attempts in the direction of ultimate satisfactory breath and speech control. In this particular case the desired end was gained in a few weeks.
The observant person must have noted the singularly small range of physical control exercised by the average adult outside the narrow sphere of his daily routine actions. In the realm of sport, for instance, take the golf swing. A novice, or for that matter a player of some experience carefully “addresses” the ball and is instructed _to swing up and down again in the same orbit_, without moving the head or swinging the body. The professional has arranged the stance; the drive seems the simplest of actions; yet, more often than not, it fails lamentably. And the player, nine times out of ten, _has no sort of consciousness_ of what has interfered with his stroke.
This is a very common instance of the failure to achieve the desired end in those who depend solely upon subconscious direction. Even the accomplished and practised golfer has periods when he acknowledges that he is “off his game” or “out of form,” times when his skill leaves him altogether _because he cannot register consciously_ the method which, when he uses it instinctively, enables him to play well.
Where the novice is concerned, however, the stubborn fact to be faced is that it is practically impossible for the ordinary person to carry out such instructions as _swing up and down again in the same orbit, etc._, with precision and accuracy. At the first attempt the pupil may, by mere chance, succeed. He may even make a second successful attempt, and a third, and so on. But such instances are very rare. On the other hand, he may begin badly and after a few days record a series of successes. Incidentally, I will point out that this applies more or less to the majority of experienced golf players. We all know that to vary is to be human. But there should not be such an alarming gulf between our best and our worst. It is very serious from the mental point of view. It shakes our confidence in ourselves to the very roots of our mental and physical foundations. Such experiences have a bad effect even upon the emotions generally, and the person concerned develops irritation, bad temper, and other undesirable traits at a time (a time of recreation and pleasure) when there should be an absolute absence of these harmful conditions.
It will readily be conceded that during our attempts at this or any other game the mental condition of the performer should be in keeping with a pleasurable and health-giving form of outdoor exercise.
But to return to the stumbling-blocks in the way of the correct performance of an act which requires one “to swing up and down in the same orbit.” These arise mainly from the tendency of the great majority to curve and shorten the spine unduly and otherwise to interfere with the correct conditions of the muscular system of the back, the spine, and the thorax in the performance of certain physical acts.[17] These tendencies are particularly marked when the arms are employed in such a movement as the “swing down” to make the stroke following the preparatory “swing up.” Consequently not one person in a thousand is capable of maintaining during the _down_ stroke those conditions of the back and spine present during the _up_ stroke. Consideration of these points will indicate that in order “to swing up and down in the same orbit,” it is essential that the position of the spine—particularly as regards its length and relative poise during the up and down movement—must be maintained. Other conditions are of course necessary but I cannot deal with more than one or two of the chief factors.
In order to secure the proper use of the arms and legs correct mental guidance and control are necessary. Such guidance and control should, of course, be conscious. Furthermore, this mental guidance and control must co-ordinate with a proper position and length of the spine and the accompanying correct muscular uses of the torso, if these limbs are to be controlled by that guidance and co-ordination which will command their accurate employment at all times within reasonable limits.
The foregoing are a few of the fundamental difficulties with which the golf teacher and pupil are beset. Those who have taken lessons will at once admit that the ordinary teaching methods fail to reach these difficulties satisfactorily. As a matter of fact they are not even taken into consideration. The orthodox teaching method holds the “end” in view and not the “means whereby.” It depends upon the giving of orders on the “end-gaining” principle, such an order, for instance, as “Swing up and down again in the same orbit,” without consideration of the “means whereby”; that is, without making certain that the pupil has the power to maintain a proper position of his spine and back and to use the limbs correctly during the performance of such physical acts. In other words, the teacher should first discover if his pupil is reasonably correctly co-ordinated in those muscular uses of his organism which are essential to the proper carrying out of instructions necessary to the performance of definite physical acts demanding co-ordination in the use of the human body and limbs.
If these tests are not made the beginner will waste much valuable time, dissipate his energies, suffer needless worry and suspense, and become unduly apprehensive in his attempt to gain even a very moderate standard of dependable excellence in playing golf or other games to which he may devote himself.
If we employ as the fundamental in teaching the principles of conscious guidance and control on a basis of re-education and general co-ordination the following advantages should accrue:
(1) The pupil will be made aware of his specific defects in the employment of his mental and physical organism in physical performances.
(2) When he has been made aware of these defects, he can be taught to inhibit the faulty movements, and his teacher can assist him to gain slowly but correctly the necessary experiences in the correct use of those muscular mechanisms which will enable him sooner or later to govern them properly without the aid of the teacher, and to employ them with accuracy and precision in his game of golf and other physical performances.
(3) In the golf act under consideration he must first be given the correct experiences in the use of the muscular mechanisms of the torso and legs with the arms falling naturally at his side.
(4) The correct experiences should then be given with the use of the arms in making the “up stroke.” When this act can be performed without interference with the satisfactory conditions of the torso and legs, the correct experiences should be given in making the “down stroke” but without attempting to _drive_ the ball. This latter portion of the whole act should not be attempted until the pupil is familiar with the different movements described in 1, 2, 3 and 4.
(5) When the attempt to drive is finally made, the idea to be held in mind is that of _repeating the experiences as a whole_ (in other words, the “means whereby”), not the idea of making a drive. If the pupil holds the “end” (i.e., making a drive) in mind he will at once revert to all his old subconscious habits in the use of his mental and physical organism, whereas, on the other hand, if he holds in mind the “means whereby” (his new correct experiences) he will sooner or later put them correctly into practice and make his drives with an accuracy and precision which will give the maximum of satisfaction and pleasure.
I have personal knowledge of a person who, by employing the principles of conscious control which I advocate, mounted and rode a bicycle down-hill without mishap on the first attempt, and on the second day rode 30 miles out and 30 miles back through normal traffic. This same person was also able to fence passably on first taking the foil into his hands. In each case the principles involved were explained to him and he carefully watched an exhibition, first analysing the actions and the “means whereby,” then reproducing them on a clearly apprehended plan. This, it seems to me, should be a normal, not an abnormal human accomplishment. Just as a cat by sheer instinct, the first time she essays to jump, gauges her powers and the distances with accuracy, so, with more reason and greater ease, the human subject, by employing consciously controlled intellect and kindred experience in place of instinct, should be able to direct his powers to a definite ordained end with less physical strain and less frequent physical repetition, i.e., “Practice.”
In this connexion I have been often asked the difference between instinct and intuition. I define instinct as the result of the accumulated subconscious psycho-physical experiences of man at all stages of his development, which continue with us until, singly or collectively, we reach the stage of conscious control; whilst intuition is the result of the _conscious reasoned_ psycho-physical experiences during the process of our evolution.
The word “subconsciousness” is but a formula for our habits of life. I hold strongly that when we shall have reached the state of conscious control in civilisation, and have established thereby new and correct habits, a new and correct subconsciousness will become established.
I might here with advantage re-emphasise my view regarding the supreme importance of conscious control.
Conscious control is imperative, as I have pointed out, because instinct in our advancing civilisation largely fails to meet the needs of our complex environment. Without conscious control the subject or patient may know he has defects, may know further what those defects are, may even know at what explicit improvement he is to aim, and yet may be quite unable by means of imitation or the orthodox and traditional methods of instruction to effect the desired end.
With conscious control, on the other hand, true development (unfolding), education (drawing out), and evolution are possible along intellectual as against the old orthodox and fallacious lines, by means of reasoned processes, analysed, understood, and explicitly directed. Conscious control enables the subject, once a fault be recognised, to find and readily apply the remedial process.
It is my belief, confirmed by the research and practice of nearly twenty years, that man’s supreme inheritance of conscious guidance and control is within the grasp of any one who will take the trouble to cultivate it. That it is no esoteric doctrine or mystical cult, but a synthesis of entirely reasonable propositions that can be demonstrated in pure theory and substantiated in common practice.
I will now consider at greater length a characteristic case for the elucidation of these various points of theory and practice.
M. H., a youth fourteen years old, was sent to me by a well-known throat specialist. He had removed two nodules from the boy’s vocal chords, and had given him special treatment in a nursing home for a month, but without any satisfactory improvement. The mother came to me with the boy and was present during my treatment. I found that his attempts to speak resulted in a hoarse whisper accompanied by spasmodic twitchings of various parts of the body and by facial contortions, all this being brought about by erroneous conceptions, left untouched by the former teacher, as to the amount of effort needed in order to speak. In his former lessons he had been told to try and improve the utterance of simple sounds and words, without any analysis or pointing out of the wrong means which he had previously employed to this end. All his efforts to carry out his teacher’s directions were made in accordance with his original preconceptions and former experience. His muscular mechanisms were employed in the same (wrong) way and his whole consciousness and explicit and implicit self-directions were exactly the same as they had been previously.
He had opened his mouth imperfectly and had been ordered by his teacher to open his mouth wider. But there had been no recognition by the pupil that he had not opened his mouth sufficiently, neither had there been any analysis by the teacher of the pupil’s failure to open the mouth (a seemingly simple thing but _ex hypothesi_ not simple to the patient), or of the concomitant contortions and automatic reaction. As well say, “You have been speaking improperly, now speak properly,” and call that a lesson, as indeed it would have been called in the early Victorian era, as, “Open your mouth wide, speak up, and don’t make nervous movements.” It is not the “end” that the teacher and pupil must work for, but the “means whereby.” And this discovery of the “means whereby,” differing in different subjects and not to be stated in a general formula, can only be the result of trained observation and careful, patient investigation and experience. In practice, the anxiety of this particular pupil to _speak_ along the lines of his old preconceived ideas, when nothing had been done to remove them, had made his many lessons fruitless, and had set in motion the old habitual train of irrelevant and hampering actions.
My own treatment then is: First to observe and analyse and bring about a proper working of the machinery in general (nature does not work in parts but as a whole): then to point out the first guiding order or orders to be brought into play by the pupil, namely, the inhibiting of the tension of the muscles working the lower jaw. The pupil must be made to realise clearly that this involves no action whatever on his part, but that he need only remember the correct inhibiting orders and employ them in accordance with definite instructions. When he does this it at once results in the freeing of his jaw, enabling me to move it for him with my hand. This gives him for the first time the correct kinæsthetic sense in connexion with the action of his jaw and makes it clear once and for all to him that the desired action is perfectly and easily possible. The subconscious jerkings and contortions pointed out one by one are patiently inhibited by the pupil, sometimes directly but more often by the explicit use, under my direction, of guiding orders which gradually co-ordinate and remedy the whole faulty system of the pupil’s muscular action. One by one the wrong actions and reactions are inhibited, the tightening of the neck, the throwing back of the head, the tension of the lower jaw, the deep “sucking” breath, the jerks of the limbs, the grimaces; and then, on the positive side, the right actions are gradually built up, such as the free controlled opening of the mouth, the even “pneumatic” breath, the upright balanced poise, the clear enunciation and correct vocalisation.[18]
The brain of both pupil and teacher are at work the whole time. No use is made of “hypnotism” or of auto-suggestion, but the confident, skilful, patient and explicit directions of the teacher should tend to remove flurry and vagueness and consequent waste of mental and physical effort.
The analysis of even the simplest processes is apt to appear unduly complex. This case can be stated briefly on the practical side. It took twenty lessons to break down the bad habits and another twelve to effect a complete and permanent cure.
With regard to such a simple act as opening the mouth two or three factors should be emphasised: firstly, the tendency to yield to erroneous preconceived ideas, secondly, the delusions of the pupil in regard to thought and action, thirdly, a pernicious dependence on sensation which has been based solely upon experience of defective action.
There are very few men, for instance, who, when told to open the mouth, will not throw the head back with the idea, as it were, of lifting the upper jaw away from the lower. They do not observe or reflect that an inhibition of the subconscious orders which cause the mechanisms to keep the mouth closed will bring about such a relaxation of that muscular tension as will allow the jaw to drop. It does in fact commonly drop in the case of that type of idiot who is most often open-mouthed; whilst it is common knowledge that in boxing a blow on the head, heavy enough to throw out the controlling gear, causes the jaw of the injured boxer to drop of itself and to remain dropped for a considerable time.
When I ask a pupil to let me move his lower jaw away from his upper he usually increases instinctively the tension that keeps the lower jaw in place. As I have frequently pointed out, an enormous aggregate waste of energy is involved in these constant and irrational tensions.
But the matter becomes seriously harmful in, let us say, such actions as singing and speaking, for when the mouth is opened with this unconscious and absurd expenditure of force, the neck is unduly stiffened, the head is thrown backwards, the larynx unduly and harmfully depressed, and thereby in a position most unfavourable to good vocalisation. As I have for years pointed out and demonstrated in my own practice, from these ill-considered tensions spring the different forms of throat and ear trouble which are so common and which so frequently defy ordinary or for that matter extraordinary and highly specialised medical treatment. By inducing a proper conception of the right method of opening the mouth, I can command in the patient, and what is more important, teach him to command in himself, a free condition in which the larynx tends to be slightly raised and relaxed instead of tightened and depressed; whilst there will surely follow and that with a minimum of effort, a greater mobility of the facial muscles and of those of the lips and tongue so essential to good and clear enunciation and vocalisation.
This, in the briefest summary, is the method of teaching the process of conscious control of the muscular mechanisms. I come now to an equally brief consideration of the effects of this method. Speaking generally, I have found that the first immediate effects are a general stimulation and increased efficiency of the whole organism. Nor is this difficult to understand. For it would seem that in the life led by civilised man so little demand is made upon any but the commonly exercised muscles, and these are called upon for comparatively so little effort, that a general sluggishness supervenes, with consequent stagnation resulting in the commonly observed effects of auto-intoxication. With the breaking up of the old motor habits, the muscular mechanisms are brought into full play, the toxins which have accumulated are broken up and disturbed, and increased vitality, a sense of power, and enormously improved efficiency follow as a matter of course. Beyond this, and still speaking generally, I find that there are increased powers of resistance against the attacks of infectious diseases, and—possibly the greatest effect since it guarantees the lasting qualities of the change which is brought about—an ability to check the formation of any bad, incipient muscular or mental habit. This last is, in my opinion, of the very first importance, for it demonstrates the power of the individual, once these principles of conscious guidance and control are mastered, to be the lord of his own body.
Of the specific effects procured by the inculcation of these methods I cannot speak at length, but I am able to produce a list of cases which have been treated by me, in some of which I can only say that I have been astonished at the results. These include cases diagnosed by prominent physicians in England, Australia, and the United States of America as paralysis, varicosity, tuberculosis, asthma, adhesions of the lungs, hæmorrhage, congenital and other malformations, effects of infantile paralysis, many varieties of throat, nose and ear trouble, hayfever, chronic constipation, incipient appendicitis and colitis; and in no case that has come under my personal supervision have I discovered any relapse that was not curable by a few further instructions in the principles enunciated. Looking to the future and to the development and elaboration of this method, I foresee that a race which has been educated on the lines of what I have called “conscious guidance and control” will be eminently well fitted to meet any circumstance which the civilisations of the future may impose. The minds and bodies alike of such a race will be adaptable to any occupation that may be their lot. To those who have been educated in these principles no severe physical exercise is a necessity, since there are no stagnant eddies in the system in which the toxins can accumulate, and to them will belong a full and complete command of their physical organisms. That this practical and by no means visionary or untried psycho-therapy will in time supersede the tentative and restricted methods of somato-therapy, I am confident, and I sincerely hope that the great benefits which these principles confer will not be confined to any one race or people. The wonderful improvements in physical health—often deemed “miraculous” by the uninitiated—which have been effected in adults, adumbrate the potentialities for efficiency which may be developed in the children of the new race.
It is essential that the peoples of civilisation should comprehend the value of their inheritance, that outcome of the long process of evolution which will enable them to govern the uses of their own physical mechanisms. By and through consciousness and the application of a reasoning intelligence, man may rise above the powers of all disease and physical disabilities. This triumph is not to be won in sleep, in trance, in submission, in paralysis, or in anæsthesia, but in a clear, open-eyed, reasoning, deliberate consciousness and apprehension of the wonderful potentialities possessed by mankind, the transcendent inheritance of a conscious mind.
IV CONSCIOUS GUIDANCE AND CONTROL IN PRACTICE
Whilst under the guidance of the subconscious mind, mankind cannot readily adapt itself to the rapidly and everchanging conditions imposed by civilisation. A proper standard of mental and physical perfection implies an adaptability which makes it easy for a man to turn from one occupation in which a certain set of muscles are employed, to another involving totally different muscular actions. Under the present subconscious guidance such an easy transference is, to say the least of it, likely to be a very rare occurrence.
For the purpose of demonstration we may assume that a man who has been engaged in clerical work all his life is suddenly called upon to become a ploughman and to make a success, within a reasonable time, of his new occupation. This is an extreme instance, but the argument will apply equally well in a less extreme case. As he is subconsciously controlled he will attack the problem through his sense of feeling—through his feeling-tones—and strive directly for the desired “end.” He will make no reasoned estimate of the “means whereby” he may make a success. He will not, as a preliminary to the act of ploughing, consider the particular demands which will be made on different parts of his organism, nor will he take into account the elemental laws which are essential to a satisfactory use of the plough as an instrument to be controlled in its legitimate sphere. His mind is fixed from the start on the achievement,—on the act of ploughing. He looks only to the end he desires to attain.
So he will grip the handles of his plough, set the horses in motion, and will be pleased to find that the plough moves more or less through the earth, chiefly less, for he finds it difficult to keep the share embedded and to keep the furrow straight. When he succeeds, he is almost certain to be thrown from side to side by the movements of the plough, which are affected by the hard or soft ground it meets in its progress. He holds no conscious reasoned guiding principles in his mind. His efforts are simply subconscious, in a chance endeavour to gain the end in view.
In order to maintain his own equilibrium and the efficient working of the plough, it is highly probable that he will unduly tense muscles which are precisely those which should not be tensed, and relax those which should do the most work. The tension of the muscles of the arm will almost certainly be unnecessarily high, and the general use of the wrong muscles will tend to destroy the proper equilibrium rather than to maintain it. We thus see that the moment he steps into his new occupation (which he no doubt had congratulated himself would bring perfect health in its train), he immediately begins to cultivate new and harmful habits during his daily round.[19] He becomes a badly co-ordinated, imperfectly guided ploughman precisely as he was a badly co-ordinated and imperfectly guided clerk. When the principles of reasoned conscious control are adopted, the man leading a sedentary life will be able to take up the occupation of ploughman without any fear of cultivating harmful habits. Moreover, he will attain proficiency in ploughing in one-tenth part of the time that the subconsciously controlled man took to obtain a half-mastery of it.
Let us see how he would set about it from the point of view of reasoned conscious guidance and control. Acting under the guiding principles of reasoned and conscious control he will consider first the “means whereby” he may achieve his object, rather than that object itself. He will take time to consider well the factors to be overcome. It will be obvious to any one who will take the trouble to watch another man at the plough, that a great deal of proper manipulation is necessary to keep the share embedded and a straight furrow. The manipulation requires firstly the maintenance of the ploughman’s equilibrium under very difficult circumstances. This consideration will make it clear to him that his body must remain comparatively steady and support the arms and legs as the trunk of a tree does its limbs, following as nearly perpendicularly as possible the line the furrow should take. It will be evident to him that the “give and take” of the joints of the arms and legs are the chief moving factors which should meet the different movements of the handles of the plough. His highly trained guiding sensations will not permit him to make more physical tension with any part of the muscular system than is absolutely necessary, and only the particular muscles best adapted for the control of his equilibrium and his plough will be called into special use. For instance, when the left handle of the plough is forced upwards and the right downwards by the plough being thrown into a position leaning towards the right, the ploughman’s left arm will bend at the wrist, elbow, and shoulder, and the right straighten in order to maintain his equilibrium and general control without undue strain and interference with the proper position of the torso. Of course the left arm should exercise a downward pressure on the left handle, and the right should tend to pull the right handle upwards in order to straighten the plough again in its most effective position in the furrow. The left leg should be slightly bent at the knee, and the right leg should be kept straight and firm. The ploughman would thereby exercise his maximum of control in the right direction with the minimum of effort, and freedom from harmful strain. It will be clear from this example that in the consciously controlled stage of psycho-physical development men and women will be able, without fear of mental or physical harm, to adapt themselves at once to any strange or unusual circumstances in which they are placed. They will act in the face of the unaccustomed or the unsuspected at the direction of their conscious reasoning minds, before any promptings springing from the subconscious mind can take possession of them. Just as they will be able by conscious reasoning to change their habits at will, to be to-day a clerk, to-morrow a reasoning ploughman, so they will meet sudden surprise by that same conscious reasoning and accurate judgment which follows it. I have already drawn attention to the conduct of animals and of men and women in the lower stages of evolution when they are confronted with any phenomena to which they are unaccustomed; how that they stand terror-struck and immovable, and betray themselves. Such a condition of mind contains no element of control or reasoning, and the high importance of re-educating civilised men and women to a condition in which their control and reason are the main factors, need scarcely be emphasised at this point. On all sides is seen the destruction, the waste, the loss in human lives and human energy which are the direct outcome of a civilisation based on subconscious action.
It is our duty now to superimpose a new civilisation founded on reason rather than on feeling-tones and debauched emotions, on conscious guidance and control rather than upon instinct. The savage is terror-struck when an eclipse passes over the sun; he bows to wood and stone, quivering with fear at any desecration of any of his puppet gods. Anything which has no place in his limited range of experience he approaches through instinct which may preserve but is more likely to betray him. To-day the greater part of mankind carries out the normal responsibilities of a lifetime guided by the same imperfect forces. Men have learnt the meaning of many things which to the savage were inscrutable, but when faced with the unknown they betray the same lack of control. Suddenly-angered men will make a retort which in the light of reflection appears to them foolish and inadequate. It is an everyday experience. In the calmer moments that follow, they think of the “things they might have said,” the things they might have done, which is a simple indication of the fact that in the heated moment their emotions held sway over them, whilst their reason and control were in abeyance. The subconsciously controlled person is immediately thrown into a state of panic when faced by any emergency which presents an element of danger.
Under such circumstances many become self-hypnotic and in this state will be found absolutely out of communication with their reason. As an instance of this, one may quote the behaviour of unbalanced people in a fire. In trying to save some of their possessions before making their escape they will throw from the windows as likely as not articles which will certainly be broken to atoms in their fall. The man who threw the drawing-room clock through the window and carried the hearthrug downstairs is no fictional figure. His action represents the kind of behaviour that may be expected from the uncontrolled person in such an emergency. The following instance from my own experience may prove interesting in this connexion.
I arrived late one evening at a large hotel in a well-known mining town in one of the Colonies. I was told that there was not a room available, but that if I cared to share a room with two beds in it, with the two little sons of the proprietor, I might have a night’s rest. Those who have any experience of a mining town where there is a “gold rush” on will appreciate my good fortune. Eight weary souls that night slept on the billiard-table and I do not remember how many found a bed on the hard, draughty floor of that same room. A great friend of mine was living at the hotel. He was a man of considerable learning and accounted by all who knew him as a fine scholar and the possessor of a fine intellect. The last injunction we received from the proprietor before he retired was, “Be sure to lock your door.” After a long chat with my friend we went very late to bed. Remembering the request of my host I bolted the door, extinguished the light and almost immediately fell into a sound sleep. Within an hour I was awakened by the crackling sound of burning wood and the roar of flames. I realised at once that the hotel was on fire and almost immediately the tongues of flame found their way into my room through the top of the wooden walls and began to lick the ceiling of the bedroom.
My first thought was for the little lads who were sleeping in the room. I unbolted the door, and taking one under my left arm began to search for the other. By this time the room was filled with smoke, so I took the one boy out and returned to the search in the dense smoke. He had evidently jumped out of his bed half awake, for I found him under the bed. Taking both under my arms I rushed down the stairs and ran with them to their father’s bedroom. He dashed out and calling his men-servants at once proceeded to take measures to extinguish the fire. I, of course, rushed to my friend’s room, awakened him, and after lighting his candle and seeing him jump to the floor I left him, and proceeded to give the general alarm. I then joined those who were fighting the flames, which after a while were successfully extinguished. My readers will be able from this account to judge of the time which elapsed between the visit to my friend’s room and the complete extinguishing of the fire. When all was over I looked round to exchange a word with my friend and was surprised to find that he was not of the number by whom we were surrounded. I walked back to his room and was amazed to find him absolutely dressed. When I entered the room he was calmly buttoning up his waistcoat as on any other morning when he had nothing to fear. He was self-hypnotised as regarded his chances of being burned alive, and had even shaved.
Thousands of instances of similar behaviour in unusual circumstances might be given, and the list might well be completed with the now famous story concerning Carlyle’s failure to keep in “communication with his reason,” on the occasion that Henry Taylor was ill. He heard the news, and became overanxious to help his friend. We can only conclude that he was under the domination of his subconsciousness, when he rushed off to Sheen with the remaining portion of a bottle of medicine which had helped Mrs. Carlyle, without knowing the particular uses of the medicine or the cause of his friend’s illness.
The managing director of one of the largest business houses operating in Great Britain and America had been sent to me for treatment by his medical adviser. We had frequently discussed the psychological tendencies and characteristics of young men likely to make their way in the business world. One day, after a chat on this subject in which we were both interested, he informed me that there was always room in his firm for the right kind of young man, and intimated that if I knew one he would be glad if I would send him along. For some weeks prior to this time I had been asked to interest myself in a young man I had never met. I mentioned this to my pupil, and he said, “Ask the young man to write to me and I will fix an appointment.” This was done, and the following is the young man’s account of the interview: “I called on Mr. —— and he positively insulted me. When I entered his office he asked me to sit down while he finished a letter. After about five minutes he jumped suddenly from his chair, walked towards me, and banging his fist with great vigour on a table near me, shouted, ‘What the devil do you know about business?’ Of course,” the young man continued, “I was so unnerved that I could not even collect my thoughts and I was so flurried that I could not answer his further questions. He told me he hadn’t any position to suit me.” “My dear young man,” I remarked, “why did you allow Mr. —— to insult you? Why did you not remonstrate with him and assure him that you could not permit him to speak to you in such a way?” “I was so upset by his sudden attack, and I didn’t expect to be treated in such a way.” “Just so,” I replied, “you were nonplussed by the unexpected. But I hope this will be a lesson to you. Mr. —— was only testing you, and he wants men who are capable of dealing with unexpected events and situations in his business. If you had made an instant protest against his manner, you would now be in a position in his firm because you would have come successfully through his test.”
In that stage of evolution which may be defined as purely animal, the powers of instinct in accustomed circumstances are quite remarkable, and it is due to this fact that the animal, in certain conditions of danger, will do the one right thing to escape. On the other hand, in proof of the limitations of instinct, we have only to name the noble and subconsciously controlled ostrich, so wily in its movements, and so clever in many directions, which when confronted with more than an ordinary danger, presses its head into the sand and allows its pursuer to kill it. The powers of instinct are undoubtedly limited in the animal kingdom, in uncivilised mankind, and in all stages of evolution where subconscious control is the guiding principle. This fact perhaps accounts more than anything else for the rise and fall of nations and of races, for no community as yet has cultivated and developed a national consciousness in communication with reason. The psychology of nations is too large a subject to deal with here, but, logically, if the principles of conscious guidance and control, as I have outlined them in application to the individual, were further adopted by the rising nation, it is unthinkable that it should ever suffer from deterioration.
It would act in all crises strictly in accordance with the dictates of reason, and, guided by a judgment born of tested experiences, it would be supreme.
V CONSCIOUS GUIDANCE AND CONTROL
APPREHENSION AND RE-EDUCATION
The average person may exhibit complete nerve control and balance during accustomed experiences and accomplishment of the different mental and physical demands made during the ordinary round of life, but, when suddenly confronted with the unexpected or unknown, he betrays undue apprehension and loss of control, even when the new experience may not hold any real terrors for him. The fact is, he becomes panic-stricken by the effects of the new experience. He is mentally incapable of considering the “facts of the case,” for his reasoning power is thrown completely out of use by the unusual, and he is reduced to the level of the terrified animal or savage. This shows that we have not reached the stage of evolution where, by employing the reasoning faculties, we should be able to meet any emergency with control and calmness and do the right thing at the psychological moment. The really clever barrister takes advantage of this human weakness, and when cross-examining proceeds to unbalance the witness by an unexpected attack on a new line. If the barrister is successful in his choice in this connexion he will assuredly gain his end with the witness who has not learnt to meet the unusual with reasoned judgment. He will become unnerved, and the barrister can hardly fail to succeed in disconcerting him.
Let me point out, however, that the barrister himself can be caught in the same trap if the witness adopts a mode of procedure which will be new to his rival. It will be merely a matter of which gets his blow in first. As an instance, in a case of special interest at which I was present, the following took place. Incidentally I should mention that the barrister and witness had a mutual friend by whom they had sent uncomplimentary messages to one another before the meeting in court. Naturally both were on guard. The barrister opened by, “Now, Mr. ——, might I _suggest_——” and made the unfortunate mistake of repeating this the second time, whereupon the witness calmly remarked, “May I remind you that you are here to _ask questions, not to suggest_.” The barrister was quite nonplussed for the moment. This disturbed his usual control and allowed his feelings to dominate his judgment, and during the remainder of the case he failed to regain his balance and gave so much attention to trying to get even with the witness that he missed many points of the greatest value to his case and the verdict was gained by his opponents.
The removal of the Hunt Club Cup from its stand at Ascot Race Course is a trenchant example of the practical application of the knowledge of the weakness of men and women in the direction indicated. Constables and employees of the makers of the cup were on duty to ensure its safety, and moreover, there were always crowds of people round it. To any ordinary person it would have seemed absolutely impossible to remove such a large article without being detected. Despite this fact it was taken from its stand and removed from the Ascot grounds. One of those who successfully carried out this scheme must have been a highly developed psychologist, a man who knew only too well the weaknesses of his fellow-men. Presumably he knew that something unexpected must be done suddenly in order to attract and divert for a considerable length of time the constables guarding the Cup, during which time the thief would be enabled to get some distance away with his prize before its removal would be noticed. We are told that a group of men caused a disturbance, that heated words were exchanged and blows followed, no doubt at a prearranged signal. The thief counted on the psychological fact that the constables were unlikely to use their reason and so preserve their self-control by continuing to watch the Cup in the face of this unexpected occurrence, and during the distraction therefore the theft was accomplished.
It must be obvious that there is going on a wicked waste of this wonderful power of reasoning, where reliance is placed on an automatic subconsciousness which permits the suspension of our common-sense and upsets our balance, thus narrowing our sphere of usefulness. Therefore if we are really to progress in the future, subconscious guidance must be superseded by a reasoned and conscious guidance which can safeguard us in unusual circumstances and at critical moments. For with real progress on a sound basis we must expect a great increase in “critical moments” and “unusual circumstances,” and our development must be on those lines which will enable us to meet them with calmness and common-sense, doing the one right thing the latter will suggest. This failing in reasoned action is as common amongst the educated as amongst the uneducated, and it is a most serious indictment of our present educational system that it should be so, and that as it is at present constituted it does not offer any real solution of the problem to be applied by the men and women of the future.
Take as an example a very prevalent form of human weakness, namely, our attitude of mind in regard to simple worries, whether real or imaginary. It is an interesting psychological fact that there are millions of highly educated people who have cultivated unwillingly what may be called the “worry habit.” This worry habit is directly the outcome of the lack of use of our reasoning faculties, as is conclusively proved to me in my long professional experience by the fact that people suffering in this way worry exactly in the same degree when the cause has been removed as when it was actually a reality. I can hear my readers say, “But the person is not convinced that the cause has been removed.” In the experience I refer to they were absolutely convinced, and in my next book there will be a fitting opportunity, I hope, to explain at considerable length this mental condition which seems so extraordinary and unreasonable.
This is one of the most difficult mental defects a teacher can be called upon to eradicate, because it shows that the person so afflicted is dominated by a subconsciousness built up of delusion and undue apprehension without any relation to common-sense or fact. Another instance of the disregard of reasoned judgment is demonstrated to me constantly in the mental attitude of my pupils when they first come to me for lessons. In the endeavour to perform some particular act, however simple, many pupils exhibit a degree of apprehension out of all proportion to the point at issue. This makes progress almost impossible and causes considerable distress. It is not my intention to deal with any of the complex examples which come to my notice in my daily experience with intelligent and educated pupils, but merely to set down some of the very simple examples of difficulties which seriously retard the progress of well-meaning people while undergoing any training.
Naturally a teacher is forced to point out at the beginning that this or that is wrong. All too frequently the pupil at once shows distinct signs of unnecessary apprehension. As this condition is the most retarding feature in any teaching work, I have for years in my own work devoted special attention to it and at once make an attempt to prevent it by endeavouring to put the pupil into “communication with his reason.” There are numerous and widely differing means to this end in the early stages of re-education to the description of which a whole book might easily be devoted, but it is sufficient here to mention it in a general way. I begin by pointing out that we expect these different things to be wrong, that their being so is not a case for worry or apprehension, seeing that they assuredly can be corrected. I draw attention to the obvious fact that a pupil comes to a teacher because there is something wrong. That must be the primary idea, otherwise the teacher’s help is superfluous. Then, why worry when the defects or failings are discovered and made known to one? Surely it is something that should evoke pleasure rather than worry. In other words, if we have imperfections and defects, we seek help because we are conscious of their existence, because we wish to know definitely what they are, so that we may have an opportunity to eradicate them. Common-sense dictates that we should find a teacher who can detect these defects and diagnose their cause, and when this is done the pupil has much to ease his mind, much to bring him real satisfaction when the teacher can assure him of their eradication, and a changed mental attitude should immediately follow. But many people are so out of communication with their reason that it needs days of re-education to establish a satisfactory working basis.
Now, to bring about the correct performance of any act by the principles of my system of teaching it is not necessary at the beginning to call upon the pupil for any specific physical efforts. This very fact should remove immediately any cause for worry or apprehension, but in many cases it does not. When this is the case the teacher must explain that the reason that the pupil is unable to perform the act correctly is that he believes that there is something for him to do physically, when as a matter of fact the very opposite is necessary. He _is doing_ what is wrong. Obviously he should begin then by ceasing to do what is wrong, not by endeavouring blindly to do what is right. The process is this: Apprehensively he tries to do what he thinks his teacher desires him to do. The old wrong subconscious orders follow in their usual channels, and before he realises the fact he is performing the act in the old wrong manner. Therefore he must learn to inhibit these incorrect subconscious orders, which result in undue physical tension and the imperfect use of his muscles. But instead of employing inhibition he adds to his difficulties by renewing his efforts on the old basis to put right what he is told is wrong, and he actually employs increased force in accordance with his own estimate of the amount needed to perform the act. And why so? Chiefly because the ordinary human being has lost the habit of inhibition, and because he is guided here by his sense of feeling, in this connexion the most unreliable guide.
When it is explained to such a pupil that inhibition is the first step in his re-education, that his apprehensive fear that he may be doing wrong and his intense desire to do right are the secrets of his failure, he will invariably endeavour to prevent himself from doing anything, by exerting force usually in the opposite direction. And so he creates a second harmful force which, in conjunction with the first, serves only to increase the undue physical tension and to intensify the already exaggerated apprehensive condition. The fundamental principle in the re-education of such a subject is the prevention of this undue and unnecessary apprehension. He must not attempt to remedy any defect by “doing something” physically in accordance with his sensory appreciation, which is the outcome of his erroneous preconceived ideas and incorrect psycho-physical experience. His reasoning power is dominated by his sense of feeling where his psycho-physical self is concerned, so that he cannot even attempt to carry out any physical act excepting the one he _feels_ to be right, despite the fact that by his reasoning faculties and practical proof, he knows that his sense of feeling is misleading and is the outcome of erroneous preconceived ideas. We must therefore make him understand that so very frequently in re-education the correct way to perform an act _feels_ the impossible way. There is only one way out of the difficulty. He must recognise that guidance by his old sensory appreciation (feeling) is dangerously faulty and he must be taught to regain his lost power of inhibition and to develop conscious guidance. The teacher must with his hands move the pupil’s body for him in the particular act required, thereby giving him the correct kinæsthetic experience of the performance of the act.
To the uninitiated this may seem a simple matter, but if my reader will put it to the test, it will not be necessary for me to convince him that it is quite otherwise in the majority of cases. This is not surprising when it is realised that as soon as the teacher places his hands on the pupil and attempts to move him, he is at once in contact with his faulty and deceptive sense of feeling, the dominating sense in the subconsciously controlled person under such circumstances. My experience has proved that the pupil at first will act in precisely the same way if I attempt to perform the act for him as if I had asked him to do it without my assistance. He is just as apprehensive as a result of one request as of the other, and in this state of apprehensiveness he is, mentally and physically, impossible to deal with from the standpoint of re-education. He conjures up in his mind all kinds of fears that he will do this or that incorrectly. If you mention that he did a certain thing when you placed your hands on him, he will make an endeavour physically to prevent himself the next time. This, of course, is one of the worst errors a pupil can make. It is usually attended by far more tension and apprehension than when he performed the act which you pointed out was incorrect. The re-education work really begins here and it takes weeks, nay, sometimes months to bring the pupil to a stage in his co-ordination when he will be really once more in communication with his reason. With these facts before us I feel that my reader will advocate with me the necessity of adopting principles which will create new and correct habits, and eradicate needless apprehension and fear from the souls of human beings. To this end we must break the chains which have so long held them to that directive mental plane which belongs to the early stages of his evolution. The adoption of conscious guidance and control (man’s supreme inheritance) must follow, and the outcome will be a race of men and women who will outstrip their ancestors in every known sphere, and enter new spheres as yet undreamt of by the great majority of the civilised peoples of our time. The world will then make in one century greater progress in evolution towards a real civilisation than it has made in the past three.
VI INDIVIDUAL ERRORS AND DELUSIONS
Frequent reference has already been made to individual delusions, errors, and misconceptions of a more or less harmful nature associated with our mental and physical efforts in the different rounds of daily life. I wish now to draw special attention to those which may be said to have a more strictly personal bearing than those referred to heretofore, and which have not been fully recognised despite the fact that they are forerunners of unusually harmful and persistent bad habits. The individual misconceptions, errors, and delusions to which I refer are indicated in the cases which follow. They are the direct result of most laudable attempts to accomplish something considered necessary to the welfare of life, something which seemed essential to success in life, something which was felt to be a worthy achievement in life. Among these I would instance:
The attempt to bring about some change considered necessary in the shape or use of a part or parts of the physical organism, and to conceal or change some supposed or real psycho-physical peculiarity, weakness, or defect.
The clinging to erroneous reasoning, in the face of undoubted evidence which revealed the errors in such reasoning, regarding the mode of procedure adopted in the attempt to prevent or “cure” attacks of illness and painful or disagreeable experiences.
The decision that a certain condition is present, and the definite conclusion as to its degree of harmfulness or the extent of its general effect upon the organism, or its influence upon the daily conduct of life.
The attempt to remedy what the subject considers a lack of concentration.
The attempt to gain benefit by relaxation in consequence of the recognition of undue tension of the muscular mechanisms, not only in physical acts, but also during the attempt to rest by sitting in a chair, lying on a bed or couch, etc.
The detection by the subject of symptoms which are always considered serious and call for immediate eradication and future prevention. The original conception in this connexion is influenced by warped and incorrect subconscious experiences, and consequently a narrow and perverted view is taken of the conditions present.
The “one-brain-track” method is in operation and the _modus operandi_ adopted by the subject is therefore deduced from false premises. Symptoms are considered causes and furthermore the chief aim of the subject in practical procedure is the attainment of the “end” desired, not the due and proper considered analysis of the “means whereby” which will secure that “end.”
Perusal of the following history of cases will serve to draw attention to the little-recognised but all-important fact that mankind’s attempts at self-help on a subconscious basis in the spheres indicated cause him to live in a self-created danger zone. Moreover, the area of this zone is being gradually but surely extended by each and every new experience in those psycho-physical activities where attempts are being made in what may be termed preventive and curative spheres.
The foregoing applies to a very wide range of bad habits over the whole organism, such as:
(1) The cultivation of harmful habits in consequence of misdirected energy and mental delusions which cause disorders and defects of the eyes, ears, nose and throat, etc.
(2) The development of the dangerous habit of not hearing any instructions, opinions, advice or argument which if put into practical procedures would be contrary to the psycho-physical subconscious habit associated with some defect, peculiarity or other abnormal condition.
(3) The development of overcompensation in some direction. “Running an idea to death,” as we say.
(4) The harmful domination by a “fixed idea,” on account of which the subject struggles to gain an “end” without adequate and sound consideration of the correct “means whereby,” or of possible consequences to him in the cultivation of defects during this process.
CASE I
An attempt to hide a thin neck.
The subject’s wife intimated that the thinness of his neck made him look many years older than his real age. This occupied his mind for some time and he was increasingly worried by his wife’s statement. He felt that he must find a practical remedy, but in the plan which he conceived he only thought of the “end” he had in view which was to hide what he believed to be an unsightly and unsatisfactory part of his anatomy. He conceived the idea of wearing as high a collar as possible and, not being satisfied with the result, he took a second and very harmful step in the hiding plan. This was a deliberately cultivated habit of shortening his neck until the under part of the jaw rested on the top of the collar, while the head was pulled back until the lower part of the back of the head pressed on the back of the collar. From his point of view a satisfactory remedy had been found and the denounced neck was at last concealed from view.
In the standing, sitting, and walking positions these uses, or rather misuses, of the muscles of the neck soon grew into a very firmly established habit which became associated with a general tendency towards the shortening of the neck and spine, whilst the muscular co-ordinations of the whole organism were gradually and harmfully interfered with.
Some of my impressions at the first interview were:
(1) The exaggerated rolling movement of his body when walking.
(2) The pressure of the under part of the jaw and the lower part of the back of the head or upper part of the neck on the collar.
(3) The marked lumbar curve of the spine with the usual shortening of stature and protruding abdominal wall. Harmful flaccidity of the abdominal muscles and general stagnation of the abdominal viscera.
(4) The fallen arches of the feet—one foot caused very considerable pain at times when standing or walking.
(5) That colour of the skin and condition of the eyes which indicates serious internal disorder.
(6) The upper part of the front of the chest was held unusually high (pouter-pigeon style). The thorax was harmfully rigid.
(7) The apprehensive mental condition in his own personal affairs and also in his contact with the practical affairs of life.
His medical advisers were unanimous in declaring that he was suffering from nerve and digestive disorders and he failed to make any improvement during many years of treatment. In his own words he “had year by year gone from bad to worse” until he was often too nervous to cross a street with ordinary traffic, and his fears in this connexion were increased by frequent attacks of giddiness when he almost lost his sense of equilibrium. He complained of painful distention after meals and suffered much from insomnia.
CASE II
An attempt to conceal his height when interviewing actor-managers of shorter stature.
It is well known in professional circles that there is a prevailing idea in the mind of the actor-manager that he should be taller than the actors who support him. The actor to whom I refer in this instance discovered that he had missed several lucrative engagements by being taller than the actor-manager with whom he had arranged personal interviews. Incidentally I may mention that he possessed a fine physique and enjoyed at this time good health. It is obvious that an actor must endeavour to prevent the loss of good engagements in his profession, and as his height was the only stumbling-block to his desires and necessities he considered his problem from this point of view only. Never for a moment did it occur to him that any mental or physical harm could result. With this “_one idea_” view he sought his remedy and soon decided that he must train himself to use his mechanisms in such a way that he could shorten his stature during interviews when seeking professional engagements. He succeeded in this direction, but unfortunately subconscious guidance and control takes no heed of the “means whereby” to be employed. His idea was merely to make an effort to gain the “end” he desired, and he was never really conscious of the actual means he ultimately employed. He merely conceived the idea of standing in a way which made him appear as short or even shorter than the person he was interviewing. Of the real mechanical happenings he was quite ignorant, and he had never thought it necessary to improve his knowledge in these all-important processes. This man came to me for help some four or five years after beginning to adopt this way of standing during the interviews. He had then been suffering for a considerable time from loss of voice, general exhaustion, and nerve and digestive disorders. On one occasion he experienced a mental and physical crisis which his medical advisers called “a nervous breakdown.”
Some of my impressions at the first and subsequent interviews were:
(1) The undue and harmful lumbar curve of the spine with the corresponding intra-abdominal pressure.
(2) The harmful and undue depression of the larynx and its accessories.
(3) The exaggerated “gasping” in breathing in vocal and dramatic efforts.
(4) The undue rigidity of the thorax and a minimum intra-thoracic capacity.
(5) The lack of mental control in any attempts in psycho-physical re-education and co-ordination.
(6) A pessimistic mental outlook with recurring fits of depression.
(7) In the standing and walking positions the hips were held too far forward, the knee joints were pressed too far back and the angle of the torso from the hips was harmfully inclined backwards, with a general tendency, as we say, to narrow the back.
CASE III
A fixed idea regarding a definite mode of procedure adopted after experiencing a week’s illness in bed.
This lady developed certain symptoms for the first time. She then decided upon a practical common-sense method of dealing with them which would undoubtedly have been the correct one in the long run. The day following her first efforts in this direction her feeling-tones registered that she was much worse, in fact that she was very ill indeed and that the latest symptoms were worse than those she had hoped to remove and ultimately prevent. She decided that her attempted remedy had actually been the cause of additional trouble without in the least relieving the original symptoms. The remedy referred to was one of activity, mental and physical. She therefore came to the conclusion that this new phase of her illness had been actually brought about by the attempt she had made to fight her symptoms by simple but active methods. This conclusion became with her an _idée fixe_.
In discussing the matter the foregoing facts were vouchsafed to me. She said that she had given due consideration to them and had concluded in consequence of her experiences that the real remedy must be to go to bed and to allow the disorder to take its own course. This unfortunate experience caused her to continue to hold the idea that as soon as she felt any of the symptoms which preceded the first attack she should at once go to bed, to “prevent,” as she put it, “the possibility of increasing the severity of the attack.” She was absolutely convinced that she must not make any effort, mental or physical, in the way of removing or resisting the disorder as she had done on the first occasion of the attack. She decided upon the easy way of inactivity and non-resistance. Once the conscience seized upon an excuse for what the mental and physical “make-up” really craved she was doomed, and her conclusions were really influenced by this subconscious tendency. It is not surprising that after pursuing such a mistaken course for six months the attacks became more frequent and severe despite medical help, and the periods during which she was confined to her bed, and which she considered necessary to her recovery, became longer and longer. But the worst feature in her case was her increasing inability to make a real effort in the direction of health. She was actually developing her tendency to allow things to take their course, she was cultivating the serious habit of being guided and controlled by what she “felt” rather than by her reason. Her relatives at last came to the conclusion that her psycho-physical condition was serious and I was asked to express an opinion from this point of view.
At the outset one suspected some incorrect and harmful mental outlook and after a few lessons succeeded in securing the pupil’s admission of the fact. A review of this mental conception may prove interesting and perhaps of great value to my readers, as it shows that as long as it existed her chances of permanently eradicating these symptoms were nil. The whole procedure constituted a prostitution of those physical, mental, and spiritual forces which are inseparable from and absolutely essential to that condition of the human organism which we call good health. This lady was suffering from the inadequate functioning of the vital organs associated with and responsible for good digestion and adequate elimination. This was proved conclusively by the results which accrued from a method of psycho-physical treatment which restored the adequate functioning after the eradication of the mental conception referred to above.
The position then was as follows:
Certain symptoms were recognised which were the result of the stagnation of organs which needed increased activity in functioning. As a matter of fact they happened to be such as would have yielded more or less to a steady walk of a mile or so daily. The effect, therefore, of lying in bed for days was only a palliative measure. But in consequence of her first impressions through her debauched sense of feeling when she adopted active measures as a remedy, she made a definite decision against their adoption in the future; in fact, she absolutely objected to a second trial of the active method. In the intervals of freedom from these attacks the one idea was rigidly held in mind that on the recognition of the slightest symptom she must go to bed and remain there. She even considered any other mode of procedure harmful. These ideas became an obsession. She became less and less in communication with her reason and the fact that she admitted that the attacks became more frequent and the symptoms more serious did not cause her to relinquish her bed treatment in favour of some other. The fact is that her debauched emotions and feeling-tones had taken control instead of remaining secondary factors to reason.
It is possible to give hundreds of such cases, and attention is specially drawn to the fact that the _one idea_ principle of meeting life’s difficulties is the real cause of these serious results. If Case I, for instance, had held in his mind the “means whereby” for the concealment of his neck and had watched carefully the effect of his attempts in this particular upon his whole organism, he would assuredly have come to the conclusion that the thin neck, natural in his case, was to be preferred to the positive evils he was unconsciously cultivating. Neither he nor his wife detected any of the numerous defects as they developed during the neck-concealing process. On the other hand, they were both aware that he was gradually failing in health and had reached a stage which his medical advisers considered serious. Of course, never for a moment was the influence of the process of shortening the neck connected with his increasing troubles and disorders. His mental training had been solely on the lines of working for an “end” (“one brain-track method”) instead of holding in his mind the “means whereby.”
He had never doubted for a moment the fallibility of the sensory appreciation of his organism. He firmly believed that immediately he decided to effect a change in his physical self he could command it by the employment of his subconscious guiding principles. He was unaware that these instinctive factors were delusive and unreliable as his directive agents.
If the reader’s interest can be aroused in this connexion, all-important benefits must accrue in even the simplest spheres of daily life. Furthermore, the more difficult problems of living will be sensibly considered without fear of the disastrous results which are now so common.
VII NOTES AND INSTANCES
Since this book was published in England, I have received a steady flow of letters from interested readers, lay and professional, which have been of great value to me. Among this correspondence, three pertinent questions occur again and again, and I am forced to infer (1) that these points are of peculiar interest to my readers and (2) that no satisfactory explanation of them is suggested by the application of the broad principles I have laid down. I feel, therefore, that in this, the American edition of my work, it may be well to treat these questions and various other matters which arise out of them for the benefit of future readers.
The three main questions—two of which occur in about eighty per cent. of letters I have received—are these:
(1) What is the correct standing position, and the position of mechanical advantage?
(2) How is the reader to apply the principles of conscious control as here laid down, to specific bad habits such as overindulgence, whether in tobacco, alcohol, particular foods, etc., or to the cure of such diseases as asthma, tuberculosis, constipation, spinal curvature, appendicitis?
(3) What are the outward signs of improvement to be noted during treatment, and are there scientific reasons for these results? In this connection I have several times been asked to give particulars of some of my more striking and representative cases.
I will take these three questions _seriatim_, and devote as much space as possible to each of them.
I. “_What is the correct standing position, and the position of mechanical advantage?_”
I think the average man is very apt to forget that he cannot assume a position of stable equilibrium and a position which ensures a perfect mobility, unless his feet are so placed as to furnish at once a stable pose and a ready pivot and fulcrum. The most perfect base is obtained by setting the feet at an angle of about forty-five degrees to one another. In all other erect positions (the defects becoming exaggerated as this angle is decreased), it will be found that there is a tendency to hollow and shorten the back and to protrude the stomach, and if any effort is made to avoid these serious faults in posture, such effort will only result—unless the feet are moved to the correct position—in a stiffened, uneasy, and unstable attitude. It is not possible, however, to set out in written language the correct pose of the feet and legs in the ideal standing position, and I therefore subjoin four photographs which have been specially taken for this purpose (first published on 22nd October, 1910), and which show quite clearly not only the correct position of the feet, the fundamental problem, but also how the whole body of the person is thereby thrown into gear.
But when this ideal position is realised, the task of obtaining it by each individual has still to be undertaken. With reference to this task, I cannot do better than quote my pamphlet of July, 1908, entitled _Why “Deep Breathing” and Physical Culture Exercises Do More Harm than Good_, from which it will be clearly seen that the ideal position varies slightly according to the idiosyncrasies of the person concerned. The passage in question is as follows:
“In the first place, to allow a pupil to assume, of himself, a certain standing position, means that his own perceptions and sensations are given the sole onus of bringing about the co-ordination upon which such standing position depends, an onus which they are quite unable to bear.
“The perceptions and sensations of all who need respiratory and physical re-education are absolutely unreliable. It is the teacher who should have the responsibility of certain detailed orders, the literal carrying out of which will ensure for the pupil _what is then the correct standing position for him_. I emphasise this last, because no one stereotyped position can be correct for each and every pupil. When the person so employs the different parts of his body that one can speak of his ‘harmful position in standing or walking,’ it is only by causing the physical machinery gradually to resume correct and harmonious working, thus changing the position from time to time, that serious harm can be averted and satisfactory results secured. I may point out, moreover, that in trying to assume the ‘proper standing position’ at the outset, the pupil unavoidably puts severe strain upon the throat, thereby paving the way for throat, ear, and eye disorders.”
Take the case, for example, of a boy who stoops very much, and combines a sinking above and below the clavicles with abnormal protrusion of the shoulder-blades. If he is told to “stand up straight” he will at once make undue physical effort to carry out the order thus crudely given, with the result that the shoulders will be thrown backward and upward, the shoulder-blades still further protruded, and the front and upper parts of the chest unduly elevated and expanded. There will also be a narrowing, a sinking, and a flabbiness of the lower dorsal and posterior thoracic region, with corresponding fixed protrusion and rigidity of the front chest wall, undue arching of the lumbar spine, shortening of the body and harmful stiffening of the arms and neck, instead of a fulness, broadness, and firmness of the back, with free mobility of the chest walls, resulting in normal curve of the lumbar region and comparative lengthening of the spine. With the arms hanging vertically, the relative position of that part of the thorax where the lungs are situated will be seen to be in front of the arms, instead of being, as it should be, behind them. In such a position, the boy feels helpless and tires rapidly, owing to the imperfect co-ordination, and any attempt to accustom him to this erect posture will ultimately result in deterioration rather than improvement.
Now the narrowing and arching of the back already referred to is exactly opposite to what is required by nature, and to that which is obtained in re-education, co-ordination, and re-adjustment, viz., _widening of the back and a more normal and extended position of the spine_. Moreover, if these conditions of the back be first secured, the neck and arms will no longer be stiffened, and the other faults will be eradicated.
In order to obviate the evils enunciated in the last two postulates the teacher must himself place the pupil in a position of mechanical advantage,[20] from which the pupil, by the mere mental rehearsal of orders which the teacher will dictate, can _ensure the posture specifically correct for himself_, although he is not, as yet, conscious of what that posture is.
I further elaborated the same point in _Why We Breathe Incorrectly_ (November, 1909), and from this pamphlet I will now quote another passage which bears directly on some important points involved, viz.:
“There can be no such thing as a ‘correct standing position’ for each and every person. The question is not one of correct position, but of correct co-ordination (i.e., of the muscular mechanisms concerned). Moreover, any one who has acquired the power of co-ordinating correctly, can re-adjust the parts of his body to meet the requirements of almost any position, while always commanding adequate and correct movements of the respiratory apparatus and perfect vocal control—a fact which I demonstrate daily to my pupils. Continual re-adjustment of the parts of the body without undue physical tension is most beneficial, as is proved by the high standard of health and long life of acrobats. It is a significant fact that the very reverse is the case with athletes, showing that undue muscular tension does not conduce to health and longevity.”
[Illustration:
A.A. THE FEET ARE HERE PLACED IN THE IDEAL POSITION FOR OBTAINING PERFECT EQUILIBRIUM OF THE HUMAN MACHINE, AND FOR PERMITTING THE MAXIMUM ACTIVITY OF THE FUNCTIONING OF THE WHOLE ORGANISM. NOTE.—IT IS EVIDENT THAT EITHER THE RIGHT OR LEFT FOOT MAY BE IN ADVANCE WITHOUT AFFECTING THE CORRECTNESS OF THE POSE. ]
[Illustration:
B.B. THE FEET ARE HERE PLACED IN A POSITION WHICH COMPELS AN IMPERFECT ADJUSTMENT OF THE WHOLE ORGANISM IN ORDER TO SECURE EVEN AN IMPERFECT EQUILIBRIUM. THIS POSITION RESULTS IN THE MINIMUM ACTIVITY OF THE VITAL FUNCTIONING. ]
From what I have now said, it will be quite evident that the primary principle involved in attaining a correct standing position is the placing of the feet in that position which will ensure their greatest effect as base, pivot, and fulcrum, and thereby throw the limbs and trunk into that pose in which they may be correctly influenced and _aided_ by the force of gravity. The weight of the body, it should be noted (see diagram AA), rests chiefly upon the rear foot, and the hips should be allowed to go back as far as is possible without altering the balance effected by the position of the feet, and without deliberately throwing the body forward. This movement starts at the ankle, and affects particularly the joints of the ankles and the hips. When inclining the body forward, there must be no bending of the spine or neck; from the hips upwards the relative positions of all parts of the torso must remain unchanged. When the position is assumed, it is further necessary for each person to bring about the proper lengthening of the spine and the adequate widening of the back. The latter needs due psycho-physical training such as is referred to in the two extracts quoted above.
This standing position as now explained is physiologically correct as a primary factor in the act of walking. The weight is thrown largely upon the rear foot, and thus enables the other knee to be bent and the forward foot to be lifted; at the same time the ankle of the rear foot should be bent so that the whole body is inclined slightly forward, thus allowing the propelling force of gravitation to be brought into play.
The whole physiology of walking is, indeed, perfectly simple when once these fundamental principles are understood. It is really resolved into the primary movements of allowing the body to incline forward from the ankle on which the weight is supported and then preventing oneself from falling by allowing the weight to be taken in turn by the foot which has been advanced. This method, simple as it may appear, is not, however, the one usually adopted. The mechanical disadvantage displayed in what is known as a “rolling gait,” for instance, a gait which is common enough, is absolutely impossible when the instructions given are carefully followed. And the effect upon the whole mechanical mechanism of the person concerned is shown by the fact that when the co-ordinating principles brought about by this method are established, there is a constant tendency for the torso to lengthen, whereas the usual tendency—due to faulty standing position and the incorrect co-ordinations which follow—is for the torso to shorten.
Nearly every one I examine or observe in the act of walking, employs unnecessary physical tension in the process in such a way that there is a tendency to shorten the spine and legs, by pressing—if I may so put it familiarly—down through the floor instead of, as it were, lightening that pressure by lengthening the body and throwing the weight forward and moving lightly and freely. In consequence of the “shortening” and “pressing down” just referred to, the civilised peoples are becoming more and more flat-footed. The properly co-ordinated person employs a due amount of tension in such a way that the tendency of the spine and legs is to lengthen, and the equilibrium is such that the undue pressure through the floor is absent and there is a lightness and freedom in the movements of such a person that is most noticeable. The person who is flat-footed has only to establish these conditions to restore the natural arch of the flatfoot.
We can find, perhaps, no better instance of the necessity for the application of the principles of conscious control to these fundamental and essential propositions of standing, walking, and running, than in the photographs taken of Dorando as he appeared when he was making his last terrible efforts to reach the tape at the conclusion of the Marathon race in London in 1908. One sees that he was desperately wearied, and that whatever conscious control of his muscular mechanisms he may ever have obtained, he was at this moment completely under the domination of subconscious (or subjective) control, that he was out of “communication with his reason.” His body, as we see him in these photographs, is thrown back from the hips, his arms are outstretched behind him, and his legs are bent forward at the knee. As a consequence, he is compelled to use almost all his physical force in order to save himself from falling backwards. He is struggling against a tremendous gravitational pull which is dragging him away from his goal. If Dorando, magnificent athlete as he undoubtedly is, had been trained in the principles of conscious control, such an attitude would have been impossible for him, tired and exhausted even as he was. For if he had not been subconsciously controlled, he would have employed his common-sense at this moment and would have acted according to the guidance of its mandate. It is at such critical moments that we have urgent need for the control of reason, for it is then that we suffer most from the loss of the animal equivalent—instinct.
Dorando’s muscles may have been taxed to their utmost capacity, but if he had been consciously controlled he would have leaned forward, not back, and while he had the strength necessary (but a very small part of the strength he was actually expending) to prevent himself from falling on his face, that gravitational force would have dragged him on instead of dragging him back from the object of his achievement, as was actually the case. He would, in short, have been able to make the _best_ instead of the _worst_ use of his powers.
Faults such as we see exaggerated in this instance are to be found in the carriage of many people to-day, and the fact is one of great importance to medical men. Patients are constantly advised to take walking exercise, although in many cases that exercise undoubtedly does more harm than good. In my opinion it is very essential that all doctors should devote more attention to this subject than they are devoting at the present time, in order that they may be in a position to advise which of their patients will be benefited by taking walking exercise, and which of them by so doing will aggravate the troubles from which they are suffering. For it should be evident, I think, that the good effects of fresh air and gentle exercise will be practically nullified, if the patient can only obtain them by exaggerating and perpetuating the defects which have led him to the prescription.
These same rules are equally applicable in principle to the acts of sitting and of rising from a sitting position. Very few people have the right mental conception of the “means whereby” of these acts or of the correct use of the parts which should be employed in their performance, and this despite the fact that we are performing these acts continually, and with such apparent ease from our own point of view. If you ask any of your friends to sit down you will notice, if you observe their actions closely, that in nearly all cases there is undue increase of muscular tension in the body and lower limbs; in many cases the arms are actually employed. As a rule, however, the most striking action is the alteration in the position of the head which is thrown back, whilst the neck is stiffened and shortened. Now I will describe the correct method, but it must be borne in mind that it is useless to give what I here call “orders” to the muscular mechanism, until the original habit and the principle of mental conception connected with this action have been eradicated. If, for instance, before giving any of the “orders” which follow, the experimenter has already fixed in his mind that he is to go through the performance of sitting down, _as that performance is known to him_, this suggestion will at once call into play all the old vicious co-ordinations, and the new orders will never influence the mechanisms to which they are directed, because those mechanisms will already be imperfectly employed, and will be held in their old routine by the force of the familiar suggestion. Firstly, then, rid the mind of the idea of sitting down, and consider the exercise and each order independently of the final consequence they entail. In other words, study the “means,” not the “end.” Secondly, stand in the position already described as the correct standing position, with the back of the legs almost touching the seat of the chair. Thirdly, order the neck to relax, and at the same time order the head _forward_ and up. (Note that to “order” the muscles of the neck to relax does not mean “allow the head to fall forward on the chest.” The order suggested is merely a mental preventive to the erroneous preconceived idea.) Fourthly, keep clearly in the mind the general idea of the lengthening of the body which is a direct consequence of the third series of orders. And fifthly, order simultaneously the hips to move backwards and the knees to bend, the knees and hip-joints acting as hinges. During this act a mental order must be given to widen the back. When this order is fulfilled, the experimenter will find himself sitting in the chair. But he is not yet upright, for the body will be inclined forward, unless he frustrates the whole performance at this point by giving his old orders to come to an upright position. Sixthly, then, and this is of great importance, pause for an instant in the position in which you will fall into the chair if the earlier instructions have been correctly followed, and then after ordering the neck to relax and the head _forward_ and up, the spine to lengthen and the back to widen, come back into the chair and to an upright position by using the hips as a hinge, and without shortening the back, stiffening the neck, or throwing up the head.
The act of rising is merely a reversal of the foregoing. Draw the feet back so that one is slightly under the seat of the chair, allow the body to move forward from the hips, always keeping in mind the freedom of the neck, and the idea of lengthening the spine. Let the whole body come forward until the centre of gravity falls over the feet, that is to say, until the poise is such that if the chair were removed at this point, you would be left balanced in the position of a person performing the “frog dance,” then by the exercise of the muscles of the legs and back, straighten the legs at the hips, knees, and ankles, until the erect position is perfectly attained.
If you care to experiment on a friend in this act of rising, you will observe that in the movement as performed by an imperfectly co-ordinated person, the same bad movements occur, tending to stiffen the neck, to arch the spine unduly, to shorten the body, and to protrude the abdominal wall.
This completes the co-ordinating idea with regard to standing, walking, and sitting, and the exercises indicated in the explanations I have made will be found exceedingly helpful as a first step towards a proper and healthful use of the muscular mechanisms in these simple acts of everyday life.
II. “_How are the principles of Conscious Control to be applied to the cure of specific bad habits, or to the cure of specific diseases?_”
The following letter is typical of many:
“Dear Sir,—I have read your book, _Man’s Supreme Inheritance_, with much interest, and I hope you will forgive me if I venture to point out a difficulty which presents itself to my mind, and probably to the mind of the ordinary reader.
“It is this: In what way is it proposed to _apply_ the principle of ‘conscious control’ in a given case—say in the overcoming of a habit, such as smoking, to take a common example—or in the case of functional disorders, as constipation? It seems to me that the great attraction to most people of the popular books on so-called ‘New Thought’ is that they lay down clear and precise rules which can be put into practice, so that the reader knows what he must do to be saved. But I confess I am unable to gather how you would recommend setting about the attainment of your principles. It would be a great help to me, and no doubt to others, if this could be explained, and probably in the larger work which you contemplate this will be more fully done.
“In the meantime, however, if it is not asking too much, I should be extremely grateful to you if you could very kindly indicate the method you propose by which the principles could be applied in such cases as I have suggested....”
Now, I may be doing the writer of this letter an injustice, but I am inclined to class him among the many enquirers who seem confidently to anticipate a miracle. In my introduction I have said, “In this brochure will be found no mention of royal roads, panaceas, or grand specifics,” yet I feel sure that some of my readers have, nevertheless, imagined that by some marvellous means they may be cured by taking thought, despite all that I have written with regard to that procedure. We see in one paragraph of the letter quoted above a nice example of the desire to lean towards any mechanical method. “The great attraction ... of the popular books on so-called ‘New Thought,’” we read, “is that they lay down clear and precise rules which can be put into practice.” It is true that I have not laid down any “clear and precise rules” which may cover every conceivable form of physical and mental trouble, as do the exponents of “New Thought” and “faith-healing,” and I think that my reason should be plain enough, for in my experience I have never found two cases exactly alike, and the detailed instructions which I might lay down for A might be extremely detrimental to B or C.
Nevertheless, since I see that some further explanation is needed, I will adumbrate the general principles which embrace the rule of application, however diverse the method may be in practice.
In the first place, all specific bad habits such as overindulgence in food, drink, tobacco, etc., evidence a lack of “control” in a certain direction, and the greater number of specific disorders such as asthma, tuberculosis, cancer, nervous complaints, etc., indicate interference with the normal conditions of the body, lack of control, and imperfect working of the human mechanisms, with displacement of the different parts of that mechanism, loss of vitality and its inevitable concomitant, lower activity of functioning in all the vital organs. When the subject has arrived at this condition, harmful habits become established and the standard of resistance to disease is seriously lowered.
To regain normal health and power in such cases, what I have called “re-education” is absolutely imperative. This treatment begins, in practically all cases, by instructions in the primary factors connected with the eradication of erroneous preconceived ideas connected with bad habits, and the simplest correct mental and physical co-ordination. The displaced parts of the body must be restored to their proper positions by re-education in a correct and controlled use of the muscular mechanisms. In this process the blood is purified, the circulation is gradually improved, and all the injurious accumulations are removed by the internal massage which is part and parcel of the increased vital activity from such re-education.
Thus the first stage in the eradication of bad habits and disorders is reached when improved conditions of health are established. Nor must it be forgotten that in this process of re-education a great object lesson is given to the controlling mind. In the very breaking up of maleficent co-ordinations or vicious circles which have become established, a new impulse is given to certain intellectual functions which have been thrown out of play. The reflex action which is setting up morbid conditions can only be controlled and altered by a deliberate realisation of the guiding process which is to be substituted, and these new impulses to the conscious mind have, analogically, very much the same effect as is produced on the body by the internal massage referred to above. The old accumulations of subconscious thought are dispersed, and room is made for new conceptions and realisations.
When the first stage is passed, it is just as easy at almost any time of life to establish “good” habits (“good” that is, by the test of all our experience and knowledge) as “bad” ones. Bad habits mean, in ninety-nine per cent. of cases, that the person concerned has, often through ignorance, pandered to and wilfully indulged certain sensations, probably with little or no thought as to what evil results may accrue from his concessions to the dominance of small pleasures. This careless relaxation of reason, in the first instance, makes it doubly difficult to assert command when the indulgence has become a habit. Sensation has usurped the throne so feebly defended by reason, and sense, once it has obtained power, is the most pitiless of autocrats. If we are to maintain the succession that is our supreme inheritance, we must first break the power of the usurper, and then re-establish our sovereign, no longer dull and indifferent to the welfare of his kingdom, but active, vigilant, and open-eyed to the evils which result from his old policy of _laissez-faire_.
So many people, I find, seem to regard the principles of conscious control as a kind of magic which may be worked by some suitable incantation. They appear to think that we may obtain conscious control of, say, the secretive glands, that we may be able to give an order to secrete more or less bile or gastric juice by a command of the objective mind. If such a thing were possible, and if I could endow any person with such power to-morrow, I should know perfectly well that I should, by so doing, be signing that person’s death warrant; I might equally well give him a dose of poison. To refer to my metaphor of the sovereign ruler, you might as well expect a king to order and superintend the detail of his subjects’ private life as expect the conscious mind directly to order and superintend every function of the body. If the king will ordain good and just laws, his policy will prosper; the detail of organisation must be left to inferior officers. In the care of the body the organisation is there, aptly and perfectly adjusted to its functions, and when the ruling power of conscious control has ordained the sane laws which shall establish peace and prosperity within the assembly, the organisation already in force will work in harmony to its fit and proper ends. On the other hand, there is great danger in underrating the power of conscious control which, if it must not be prematurely forced and made to intrude on automatic functions, must in no way be undervalued or delimited.
For instance, though it may not be possible to control directly each separate part of the abdominal viscera, we can control directly the muscles of the abdominal wall which encloses the viscera, and in reducing a protruding abdomen we can control many other muscles, notably those of the back, which when they are properly employed and co-ordinated will, by widening and altering the shape of the back, make place for the protruded stomach, allow it to occupy the natural position from which it has been ousted, and so give free play once more to the natural functions of the viscera that have been distorted and pinched by the forced positions they have had to assume. Here we see that though conscious control does not affect by a process of direct command, as it were, the lower automatic functions, there is great danger in assuming that such functions are beyond the reach of my methods.
This danger was brought before me when I read, in the _British Medical Journal_ for December, 1909, an article on one side of my teaching contributed by Dr. S——, an old pupil of mine.
In this article Dr. S—— says:
“Man’s education does not always demand conscious instruction; in the absence of unfavourable circumstances he can learn by unconscious imitation of good models.”
Now this is not demonstrably untrue, but at the same time it is, as I shall show, extraordinarily misleading, and is, in effect, just as valuable as the prescription of champagne and hothouse grapes for a pauper patient.
In the first place, we must remember, and Dr. S—— has himself admitted the fact, that the normal is the rarest of all states. Medical experts find that their most constant source of error in diagnosis arises from the overreadiness to assume normal conditions in patients whose internal economies and muscular co-ordination are, in fact, far from the ideal standard of proportion and interdependence. Yet if the expert trained in physiology fails to note the distortions which are upsetting the whole economy, what body is to be named the supreme authority that shall select the “good models” for unconscious imitation?
In the second place, we have to reckon with a psychological factor which at once determines the question of the validity of unconscious imitation. This factor is the demonstrable truth that unconscious imitation does in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand lay hold of the faults of the imitated and pass over the virtues. In a long experience of re-educating many professional men and women for the stage in this country, I have had abundant opportunity to observe the methods of the “understudy” set to “imitate” his or her principal, and my invariable experience has been that subconscious imitation has always been shown by a reproduction of the actor’s or actress’s most prominent failings. The intellectual reading of the part, the subtler inflexions of voice and the finer details of gesture are passed by, and the “understudy” reproduces the “mannerisms,” all those obvious tricks of speech, manner, and gesture which are the least essential factors in the true reading of the part. Again, my experience in cases of stammering has shown me very clearly that especially among boys and young men, the stutter has in a very large majority of cases come about by the imitation of some other boy. We do not find boys so apt to imitate one of their fellows who speaks particularly well.
Now this imitation of a fault in speech is subconscious and will not always right itself naturally, and the reason for this will become clear with a little consideration. Set a man to work on an elaborate and intricate piece of machinery. Tell him that if he moves a switch here and a lever there, certain effects will be produced and certain desired results obtained. The movements are simple ones, and the man left to himself will be able to control the working of the machine with ease and certainty. But let us suppose that some essential part of the machine is put out of gear, and that the machine instead of running smoothly and easily begins to jerk and hiccough. Our assumed operator is immediately at a loss. He sees that there is something wrong, and that there is obvious friction where there was ease before; noise has taken the place of silence; but he knows nothing of the working of the machine save the elementary movements of the switch and lever, in the uses of which he has had instruction. Now, he may perform these movements again and again; but the machine still stutters, and our operator, quite at a loss, can do nothing to obviate these faults. He must allow the machine to continue working badly if it works at all.
The boy we have adduced as an example of a stammerer, who has copied some fault of another boy and found that fault become permanent, is in exactly the same position as the unskilled operator of our illustration. This boy knows the ordinary uses of his vocal machine which have heretofore produced normal results, but he does not know enough of the machine to repair it when it is put out of gear; he cannot control the machinery so that it may at once be restored to its previous efficiency. But just as the unskilled operator may be instructed in the complete mechanism he is set to supervise, and may then stop the machine when any fault becomes evident, discover the source of the defect and set it right; so will any person who has been instructed in the principles of conscious control be able to detect and obliterate any fault in his vocal or any other bodily mechanism, even if that fault was originated below the level of consciousness.
These marked examples furnish a sound and unfailing analogy to the principles of unconscious imitation in their application to physiology. The perfectly co-ordinated man or woman does, as a matter of fact, offer less mark for imitation to the ordinary observer than the man or woman who displays an obvious defect, just as the perfectly dressed man or woman passes with less remark than those people who affect some exaggeration of costume in order to attract attention. Were we able at this time to set the Greek model before our children, we should be able to display it only on occasion, and the unconscious imitative powers of the child would seize hold far more readily of the marked defects with which it would be forced into contact during the greater part of its waking life. In a perfect world, unconscious imitation would not be able to exert a perverting influence, and to the conception of such a world we may well turn our attention, but we shall never attain it by any means other than these principles of conscious, reasoning, deliberate construction, or reconstruction, upon which I have based the whole of my theory and practice.
And, finally, there is still a serious danger to be reckoned with, even should we find sufficient methods in our present civilisation from which we might learn by unconscious imitation. We must remember that during the advance of civilisation mankind has lost the faculty we call instinct, the faculty which guided mankind in a state of nature as it still guides the lower animal world. During our advance from this primitive condition, the one great defect in our mental, physical, and educational training has been the failure to recognise that civilised life is the death-bed of instinct, and that in civilised life man’s education must always demand conscious instruction. For we see that it is at the critical moments that men fail to rise to the occasion. In such a case as that of Dorando, already cited, we see that a perfectly trained athlete, a man capable of the magnificent effort he made in the great Marathon race, was robbed of his victory by his dependence at the critical moment upon unconscious control as opposed to the conscious control which is the thesis of _Man’s Supreme Inheritance_. And every day we are told that at critical moments, at the crisis of a debate, when suddenly called upon to decide a question of moment, or when faced with terrifying physical danger, men “lose their heads”—and fail. It is more especially at these times, at the crises of life, that the men who had been _educated_ in the principles of conscious control would be capable of acting with the same reason and common-sense that characterised their mental and physical acts on the ordinary occasions of life. If they had relied upon _unconscious_ imitation they would still be dependent, to a certain degree, upon instinct.
Before leaving Question II, however, I will deal specifically with two of the prevailing maladies of our time, viz., spinal curvature and appendicitis, and show how the principles I have enunciated have a particular bearing on the prevention and cure of these two serious ailments.
1. _Spinal Curvature._ A perfect spine is an all-important factor in preserving those conditions and uses of the human machine which work together for perfect health, yet there are comparatively few people who do not in some form or degree suffer, perhaps quite unconsciously, from spinal curvature.
The present attitude towards this very serious mark of physical degeneration would be ludicrous were it not that the matter is one of almost tragic importance, and I may quote in this connexion a letter of mine which appeared in _The Pall Mall Gazette_ for 14th March, 1908. After dealing with certain other matters which need not be reproduced here, I cited the following instances of the results of our present attitude:
“In our schools and in the army, human beings are actually being developed into deformities by breathing and physical exercises. I have before me a book on the breathing exercises which are used in the army, and any person reasonably versed in physiology and psychology, and knowing they are inseparable in practice, will at once understand why so much harm results from them. Take either the officers or the soldiers. In a greater or less degree the unduly protruded upper chests (development of emphysema), unduly hollowed backs (lordosis), stiff necks, rigid thorax, and other physical eccentricities have been cultivated. It is for these reasons that heart troubles, varicose veins, emphysema, and mouth breathing (in exercise) are so much in evidence in the army. As this is a matter of national importance, I am prepared to give the time necessary to prove to the authorities (medical or official) connected with the army, the schools, or the sanatoria that the ‘deep breathing’ and physical exercises in vogue are doing far more harm than good, and are laying the foundations of much graver trouble in the future. The truth is that all exercises involving ‘deep breathing’ cause an exaggeration of the defective muscular co-ordination already present, so that even if one bad habit is eradicated, many others, often more harmful, are cultivated.
“In this connexion it is only necessary to point to the serious effects of ‘deep breathing’ and physical culture exercises in the causation of throat and ear disorders, following upon the undue and harmful depression of the larynx—the crowding down of the structures of the throat—such depression occurring with every inspiration, and as a rule with every expiration. This disorganisation and consequent strain in the region of the throat is always found exaggerated, and tends gradually to increase in people who are subject to asthma, bronchitis, and hay fever, and the removal of the factors causing such strain and disorganisation means great relief and gradual progress towards the eradication of these disorders; but, of course, all organic troubles should be removed in such cases.”
Now I may say further that I have not, up to now, examined any method of physical culture or respiration which has not tended to bring about in time some form of directly harmful lumbar spinal curvature. And I have never examined a case of the (alleged) cure of spinal curvature in which the front of the chest has not been harmfully altered, and very often seriously deformed. The original idea in diagnosis of spinal curvature which has led to the methods producing these results is “that the activity of the muscles is necessary to the retention of the spine in an erect position, in consequence of which, therefore, the primary cause for the scoliosis must be sought in an abnormal function of the muscles influencing the spine.” This is the myopathic theory of Eulenburg, an authority whose dicta have had an important influence in medical practice.
The error of advocating physical exercises, as generally understood, of any kind in the treatment of spinal curvature is even greater than in the case of John Doe, whom I cited in the earlier part of this work and whose case should be again referred to in this connexion. The question here also is one of correct conscious recognition, and it is much more marked in the case of spinal curvature than in the case of my earlier illustration, a case in which there was no special deformity, and in which the muscle-tensing exercises I deprecated did not work to emphasise a marked structural malformation.
The important factors in relation to spinal curvature are these:
(_a_) The bent or curved and therefore shortened spine.
(_b_) The decreased internal capacity of the thoracic cavity.
Plainly, attention must first be given to straightening and lengthening the curved and shortened spine. This can be done by an expert manipulator who is able to diagnose the erroneous preconceived ideas of the person concerned, and cause the pupil to inhibit them while employing the position of mechanical advantage. And it can be done without asking the pupil to perform what he understands as a single physical act. Moreover, if the correct guiding orders are given to the pupil by the teacher, and the pupil makes no attempt to hold him or herself in the lengthened position, such use of the muscular mechanism will, nevertheless, be brought about as will ensure that the torso is held in a correct position. Formerly, the consciousness in regard to the correct action has been erroneous, a mere delusion, and the muscular mechanisms have worked to pull the body down. The truth of the matter is that in the old morbid conditions which have brought about the curvature the muscles intended by Nature for the correct working of the parts concerned had been put out of action, and the whole purpose of the re-educatory method I advocate is to bring back these muscles into play, not by physical exercises, but by the employment of a position of mechanical advantage and the repetition of the correct inhibiting and guiding mental orders by the pupil, and the correct manipulation and direction by the teacher, until the two psycho-physical factors become an established psycho-physical habit.
During this process of re-education, factor (_b_) has not been forgotten. A little consideration will show that any alteration in the spine must necessarily affect the position and working of the ribs. (The analogy of the keel of a boat and the ribs which spring from it may well be held in mind to make clear the following explanation.) It will be seen that as the ribs are held apart by muscular tissues (analogous to the boards of a boat), a bending of the spine will not buckle the ribs unless great force is applied, force sufficient to rupture the muscular tissue. But it is equally evident that there must be some play in the ribs in order that they may adjust themselves to the new position. This play is effected in the human body (and would be effected mechanically in the ribs of a boat, if they possessed sufficient elasticity) by the coming together of the ends of the “false” and “flying” ribs, that is, those lower ribs which are not attached to the bony sternum. This flattening of the curve of the ribs, and the approach of their free ends towards each other, reduces the thoracic cavity, just as in our illustration of the boat its capacity would be reduced if we forcibly narrowed the distance between the thwarts. On the other hand, we see that by increasing the thoracic capacity and so increasing the distance between the ends of these ribs, we are applying a mechanical principle which by a reverse action tends to straighten the spine.
These two actions, the re-education of the “Kinæsthetic Systems” and the increasing of the thoracic capacity which applies a mechanical power by means of the muscles and ribs to the straightening of the spine, are both aspects of the one central idea, and are not separate and divisible acts.
2. _Appendicitis._ The prevalence of appendicitis has always seemed to me one of the most striking proofs of the inefficiency of present-day methods in regard to health. At times I am filled with wonder that we permit such bad conditions to become established as may necessitate the removal of the appendix. It is, of course, well known that the operation is frequently performed when the conditions do not warrant such extreme measures, but cases have come under my notice, nevertheless, and those not among the uneducated classes, in which the symptoms had become so aggravated by years of harmful habits of life as to necessitate the major operation. Fortunately there is a section of the medical profession which objects, on scientific grounds, to the removal of the appendix in all but extreme cases, and this opposition and the evidence adducible as to the comparative ease with which the exaggerated condition may be avoided and the trouble completely cured by natural means, is doing much to limit the sphere of those champions of the knife who are never content unless they can be dissecting the living body.
There can be no question or shadow of doubt that when the whole frame is properly co-ordinated and the adjustment of the body is correct and controlled according to the principles I have enunciated, it is a practical impossibility to get appendicitis. The cause of the trouble is due to imperfect adjustment of the body which allows or forces the abdominal viscera to become displaced and to fall. The first consequence of this is a change of pressures and the loss of the natural internal massage, present in normal conditions. This leads to constipation among other symptoms, and permits the gradual accumulation of toxic poisons.
When the trouble has already shown itself and there is some positive inflammation of the appendix and tenderness in that region, it is by no means too late to apply my methods. The new co-ordinations which may in such cases be brought about very quickly, and established later, at once relieve false internal pressures and permit a natural re-adjustment of the viscera, and the furtherance of a rapid return to a healthy and normal condition is greatly accelerated by the internal massage.
With regard to this latter treatment to which I have already referred in this chapter, I may mention that many pupils have asked me if I use internal massage in my system of re-education. In my brochure on the _Theory and Practice of Respiratory Re-education_, included in Part III, it will be found that I used this description, as I said, for lack of one that was sufficiently comprehensive, but the principle itself is one of the first importance.
When a patient or pupil is placed in the position of mechanical advantage I have so often had occasion to refer to, the manipulator can secure the maximum movement of the abdominal viscera in strict accordance with the laws of nature and will obtain at the same time a maximum functioning of all the internal organs. In this way foreign accumulations are dissipated, constipation is relieved, and the more or less collapsed viscera—the cause of all the trouble—are restored to their proper places and resume their natural functions.
All these things, it will be seen, are essential factors in the prevention and cure of appendicitis, and I may add that the application of these principles in a very large number of cases in which an operation has been medically advised has conclusively demonstrated their value to the individual and to the race.
Appendicitis, like influenza, is probably almost an impossibility in the natural state; it is one of the results of civilisation and subconsciously controlled mechanisms, and is possible only through the conditions we have developed; and these adventitious troubles and ailments will continue to appear and to do their work of destruction until some general recognition is made of the necessity for substituting conscious control for the partly superseded forces which in a wild state render these ailments impossible.
III. “_What are the outward signs of improvement to be noted during treatment?_”
The signs of improvement are manifold and they necessarily vary according to the nature of the original defect, but I will set out here some of the more characteristic, such as occur in generally typical cases.
We see, in the first place, that the characteristic defects of the body, whether displacements of some part or parts of the muscular mechanism (in some cases even displacement of the bones), or defects of pose which throw some unusual strain upon a muscle, or, more commonly, a group of muscles not intended to take such strain, all have some correlated defects, which may be observed by the instructed as certain visible peculiarities and abnormalities. And we must draw particular attention in this connexion to the fact that these outer signs are _correlated_ with the inner defects. Neither outer sign nor inner defect is from one point of view the _result_ one of the other. The original cause is some faulty or imperfect co-ordination or conception of function; the inner defect and outer sign-mark are equally a consequence as they are to us an index.
As we should naturally expect, the chief sign-manual is to be found in the face. To me, that is a most valuable document upon which is written many curious, intricate, sometimes alarming confessions. The expression of the eyes, the set of the lips, the drawing of the forehead, and the more pronounced dragging of the flexible face muscles, are all marks which may be read by the expert, and, to answer the question directly, one of the earlier outward signs of improvement is to be found in a relaxation of the forced and unnatural expression which results from these contortions. It must be obvious that I cannot here set out in detail the symptomatic distortions which accompany the various internal defects, but one may be noted as an exemplar for the others however diverse.
The case in question was one of dilation of the heart and as such was brought to me by a medical friend, and, as a matter of fact, though this was the most alarming symptom, it was but one of many springing from deep-seated causes. Incidentally I may note that the spine was arched inwards, the legs were unduly and most abnormally stiffened when the patient was in a standing position, and the upper part of the chest was held most harmfully high—this last symptom being the influence which produced what was really a tertiary effect, though in this case the most threatening one, viz., the dilation of the heart. Now this patient carried certain very curious marks in the face: first a general expression of strain in the eyes and cheek muscles, and secondly four very marked indents or pits in the forehead. Here, indeed, were marks which the expert might read, and it was extremely interesting to note, as my treatment progressed and the patient recovered the proper use of the body and a consequent return to perfect health, first, the disappearance of the strained expression of eyes and face muscles, and secondly, the gradual filling up of the four curious indentations in the forehead. In this case the original symptoms were so marked that the patient’s friends all commented on the change of expression during the progress of the treatment.
The face, however, is by no means the only index. Many defects lead, by way of stiffened neck and throat muscles, to an alteration in the quality and power of the voice. There too the mode of movement and the failure to express purpose in muscular action, the fumbling, indirect attempt to perform a simple act, are aids to diagnosis, either of the original defect, or, by their reversion to natural, easy functioning, of the progress of the cure.
Generally, also, we observe a clearing of the skin and eyes as the defects are eradicated, improvements which are due to better circulation and the improved quality of the blood, factors which bring about a continually increasing power in the organism to purge itself not only through the bowels and kidneys, but also through the skin.
Lastly, we may note a general improvement in physique, in the carriage of the body, in the whole appearance of co-ordinated, reasoned control.
Another curious and interesting test of the co-ordinated person who is attaining conscious control of the uses of his body is obtained by observing his hands when they fall to his sides in the position which comes naturally to him. One may say that there are three main stages to be observed in man’s development in this particular, though the gradations are many and not, perhaps, always strictly progressive. The first stage may be observed in the lowest savages, the Hottentot, the Australian aboriginal, and many races at an early stage of development. Such examples stand with body thrown back from the hips, stomach protruded, and—here is the test—_with the palms of the hands forward_, the elbows bent into the sides, the thumbs sticking out away from the body. The second stage is evidenced in the averaged civilised man of to-day who stands as a rule with the palms of his hands towards his body, his elbows to the back, his thumbs forward. In the third stage, the properly co-ordinated person stands with the back of his hands forward, the thumbs inwards, and the elbows slightly bent outwards. This is a curious but little known test, which, in my experience, has never failed as an index to imperfect muscular co-ordination.
I believe I have now answered in sufficient detail the somewhat wide intention of these three main questions, but in conclusion I will note one further point that has been raised.
This is the question as to why the great majority of men and women breathe from their stomach or the upper chest and so allow, among other evils, the costal arch to be narrowed and the flying ribs to become constricted and stiffened. In the case of many women there can be no doubt that this is due to the use of tight corsets which confine these ribs, and do great general harm in constricting the natural play of the vital functions. But another and, in my opinion, the primary cause is the common practice of swathing a child in bands almost immediately after birth, and keeping him so fettered during many months of infancy. The idea of this practice is to prevent rupture in male children should they be subject to violent fits of crying or coughing, but the question of the relative tightness or looseness of these swathings is left in the hands of a nurse, who, in the great majority of cases, thinks it well to be on the “safe side” by winding the child unnecessarily tightly. Obviously the early habit is retained through life unless it is broken by some outside influence. The pliancy of the young organisms is such that the functioning of the breathing apparatus is quickly re-adjusted, but the evils which gradually accumulate, from this and similar causes, do not show themselves as a rule till much later in life.
Another cause is any imperfect adjustment of the muscular mechanism, a failure which may be due to incorrect training, to unconscious imitation, or to any of the chances which are always being presented to the child in the haphazard system of physical education which obtains in our nurseries and schools.
And on this note I may well conclude my chapter, for no argument I can advance in favour of a careful consideration of the principles I have laid down can have such cogency and force as the most superficial examination of the physique of the children in our schools and the adults in our streets. We are indeed suffering, not only in Great Britain but on the continents of Europe and America, from a failure to recognise that man is no longer a natural animal, whose life-habits were dependent upon the development of the faculty of instinct, and that all systems of physical culture (and how diverse they are!) must necessarily fail unless they take into account that first and last essential, the free use and consciousness of the reasoning, controlling mind.